DEDICATION
Take thou this gift from out the grave
of Time.
The urns of Greece lie shattered, and
the cup
That for Athenian lips the Muses filled,
And flowery crowns that on Athenian hair
Hid the cicala, freedom’s golden
sign,
Dust in the dust have fallen. Calmly
sad,
The marble dead upon Athenian tombs
Speak from their eyes “Farewell”:
and well have fared
They and the saddened friends, whose clasping
hands
Win from the solemn stone eternity.
Yea, well they fared unto the evening
god,
Passing beyond the limit of the world,
Where face to face the son his mother
saw,
A living man a shadow, while she spake
Words that Odysseus and that Homer heard,—
I too, O child, I reached the common
doom,
The grave, the goal of fate, and passed
away.
—Such, Anticleia, as thy voice
to him,
Across the dim gray gulf of death and
time
Is that of Greece, a mother’s to
a child,—
Mother of each whose dreams are grave
and fair—
Who sees the Naiad where the streams are
bright
And in the sunny ripple of the sea
Cymodoce with floating golden hair:
And in the whisper of the waving oak
Hears still the Dryad’s plaint,
and, in the wind
That sighs through moonlit woodlands,
knows the horn
Of Artemis, and silver shafts and bow.
Therefore if still around this broken
vase,
Borne by rough hands, unworthy of their
load,
Far from Cephisus and the wandering rills,
There cling a fragrance as of things once
sweet,
Of honey from Hymettus’ desert hill,
Take thou the gift and hold it close and
dear;
For gifts that die have living memories—
Voices of unreturning days, that breathe
The spirit of a day that never dies.
Io, the daughter of Inachus, King of Argos, was beloved
of Zeus. But Hera was jealous of that love, and
by her ill will was Io given over to frenzy, and her
body took the semblance of a heifer: and Argus,
a many-eyed herdsman, was set by Hera to watch Io
whithersoever she strayed. Yet, in despite of
Argus, did Zeus draw nigh unto her in the shape of
a bull. And by the will of Zeus and the craft
of Hermes was Argus slain. Then Io was driven
over far lands and seas by her madness, and came at
length to the land of Egypt. There was she restored
to herself by a touch of the hand of Zeus, and bare
a child called Epaphus. And from Epaphus sprang
Libya, and from Libya, Belus; and from Belus, Aegyptus
and Danaus. And the sons of Aegyptus willed to
take the daughters of Danaus in marriage. But
the maidens held such wedlock in horror, and fled
with their father over the sea to Argos; and the king
and citizens of Argos gave them shelter and protection
from their pursuers.
