THE UNDERTONES. O Fame, thou haunting upward-urging hope, A statue of Narcissus, still and fair In the swift current of our human life, O Fame, teach thou this soul of mine to love Some beauteous counterpart, and while it bends Tremulously gazing on the image, blow Thy trump aloud, and freeze it into stone! THE UNDERTONES. I. ADES, KING OF HELL. ORB'D in a rayless realm, alone, I, Ades, dwelt upon a throne. Much darkness did my eyelids tire ; But thro' my veins the hid Sun's fire Communicated impulse, hope, thought, passion, and desire. 2. Beneath the caves where sunless loam 'Neath the fat earth-seams, where the cold Fringing blue streams in summer zones; Beneath the spheres where dead men's bones Change darkly thro' slow centuries to marl and glittering stones. 3. Eternities of lonely reign, Full of faint dreams of day and night Oppress'd my patience into pain; Upward I sent a voice of prayer That made black thunder in the air: And "Ades craves a queen, O Zeus!" shook heaven unaware. 4. The gods stopt short in full carouse, And listen'd. On the streams of Hell As in a glass. With soft-arch'd brows, Moist Iris listen'd blushingly; And Heré sought the soul of Zeus with coldly eager eye. 5. Then the clear hyaline grew cold Gray meditation clothed the place ; A kingly phantom cloudy and tall, Throned, sceptred, crown'd, was darkly apparition'd at the call. |