‘Twere vain
To hide. They soon will track thee out.

Well said!
‘Twere best done openly.

Wilt thou be led
By me, and try the venture?

Aye, indeed!
Lead on. Why should we tarry?

First we need
A rich and trailing robe of fine-linen
To gird thee.

Nay; am I a woman, then,
And no man more?

Wouldst have them slay thee dead?
No man may see their mysteries.

Well said!—
I marked thy subtle temper long ere now.

‘Tis Dionyse that prompteth me.

And how
Mean’st thou the further plan?

First take thy way
Within. I will array thee.

What array?
The woman’s? Nay, I will not.

Doth it change
So soon, all thy desire to see this strange
Adoring?

Wait! What garb wilt thou bestow
About me?

First a long tress dangling low
Beneath thy shoulders.

Aye, and next?

The said
Robe, falling to thy feet; and on thine head
A snood.

And after? Hast thou aught beyond?

Surely; the dappled fawn-skin and the wand.

Enough! I cannot wear a robe and snood.

Wouldst liefer draw the sword and spill men’s blood?

True, that were evil.—Aye; ’tis best to go
First to some place of watch.

Far wiser so,
Than seek by wrath wrath’s bitter recompense.

What of the city streets? Canst lead me hence
Unseen of any?

Lonely and untried
Thy path from hence shall be, and I thy guide!

I care for nothing, so these Bacchanals
Triumph not against me! . . . Forward to my halls
Within!—I will ordain what seemeth best.

So be it, O King! ‘Tis mine to obey thine hest,
Whate’er it be.

Well, I will go—perchance
To march and scatter them with serried lance,
Perchance to take thy plan. . . . I know not yet.

Damsels, the lion walketh to the net!
He finds his Bacchae now, and sees and dies,
And pays for all his sin!—O Dionyse,
This is thine hour and thou not far away.
Grant us our vengeance!—First, O Master, stay
The course of reason in him, and instil
A foam of madness. Let his seeing will,
Which ne’er had stooped to put thy vesture on,
Be darkened, till the deed is lightly done.
Grant likewise that he find through all his streets
Loud scorn, this man of wrath and bitter threats
That made Thebes tremble, led in woman’s guise.
I go to fold that robe of sacrifice
On Pentheus, that shall deck him to the dark,
His mother’s gift!—So shall he learn and mark
God’s true Son, Dionyse, in fulness God,
Most fearful, yet to man most soft of mood.

Will they ever come to me, ever again,
The long long dances,
On through the dark till the dim stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream
Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam
In the dim expanses?
Oh, feet of a fawn to the greenwood fled,
Alone in the grass and the loveliness;
Leap of the hunted, no more in dread,
Beyond the snares and the deadly press:
Yet a voice still in the distance sounds,
A voice and a fear and a haste of hounds;
O wildly labouring, fiercely fleet,
Onward yet by river and glen . . .
Is it joy or terror, ye storm-swift feet? . . .
To the dear lone lands untroubled of men,
Where no voice sounds, and amid the shadowy green
The little things of the woodland live unseen.

What else is Wisdom? What of man’s endeavour
Or God’s high grace, so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;
To hold a hand uplifted over Hate;
And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?

O Strength of God, slow art thou and still,
Yet failest never!
On them that worship the Ruthless Will,
On them that dream, doth His judgment wait.
Dreams of the proud man, making great
And greater ever,
Things which are not of God. In wide
And devious coverts, hunter-wise,
He coucheth Time’s unhasting stride,
Following, following, him whose eyes
Look not to Heaven. For all is vain,
The pulse of the heart, the plot of the brain,
That striveth beyond the laws that live.
And is thy Faith so much to give,
Is it so hard a thing to see,
That the Spirit of God, whate’er it be,
The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,
The Eternal and Nature-born—these things be strong?

What else is Wisdom? What of man’s endeavour
Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;
To hold a hand uplifted over Hate;
And shall not Loveliness be loved for ever?

Happy he, on the weary sea
Who hath fled the tempest and won the haven.
Happy whoso hath risen, free,
Above his striving. For strangely graven
Is the orb of life, that one and another
In gold and power may outpass his brother.
And men in their millions float and flow
And seethe with a million hopes as leaven;
And they win their Will, or they miss their Will,
And the hopes are dead or are pined for still;
But whoe’er can know,
As the long days go,
That To Live is happy, hath found his Heaven!

O eye that cravest sights thou must not see,
O heart athirst for that which slakes not! Thee,
Pentheus, I call; forth and be seen, in guise
Of woman, Maenad, saint of Dionyse,
To spy upon His Chosen and thine own
Mother!

Thy shape, methinks, is like to one
Of Cadmus’ royal maids!

Yea; and mine eye
Is bright! Yon sun shines twofold in the sky,
Thebes twofold and the Wall of Seven Gates. . . .
And is it a Wild Bull this, that walks and waits
Before me? There are horns upon thy brow!
What art thou, man or beast? For surely now
The Bull is on thee!

He who erst was wrath,
Goes with us now in gentleness. He hath
Unsealed thine eyes to see what thou shouldst see.

Say; stand I not as Ino stands, or she
Who bore me?

When I look on thee, it seems
I see their very selves!—But stay; why streams
That lock abroad, not where I laid it, crossed
Under the coif?

I did it, as I tossed
My head in dancing, to and fro, and cried
His holy music!

It shall soon be tied
Aright. ‘Tis mine to tend thee. . . . Nay, but stand
With head straight.

In the hollow of thy hand
I lay me. Deck me as thou wilt.

Thy zone
Is loosened likewise; and the folded gown
Not evenly falling to the feet.

‘Tis so,
By the right foot. But here, methinks, they flow
In one straight line to the heel.

And if thou prove
Their madness true, aye, more than true, what love
And thanks hast thou for me?

In my right hand
Is it, or thus, that I should bear the wand,
To be most like to them?

Up let it swing
In the right hand, timed with the right foot’s spring. . . .
‘Tis well thy heart is changed!

What strength is this!
Kithaeron’s steeps and all that in them is—
How say’st thou?—Could my shoulders lift the whole?

Surely thou canst, and if thou wilt! Thy soul,
Being once so sick, now stands as it should stand.

Shall it be bars of iron? Or this bare hand
And shoulder to the crags, to wrench them down?

Wouldst wreck the Nymphs’ wild temples, and the brown
Rocks, where Pan pipes at noonday?

Nay; not I!
Force is not well with women. I will lie
Hid in the pine-brake.

Even as fits a spy
On holy and fearful things, so shalt thou lie!

They lie there now, methinks—the wild birds, caught
By love among the leaves, and fluttering not!

It may be. That is what thou goest to see,
Aye, and to trap them—so they trap not thee!

Forth through the Thebans’ town! I am their king,
Aye, their one Man, seeing I dare this thing!

Yea, thou shalt bear their burden, thou alone;
Therefore thy trial awaiteth thee!—But on;
With me into thine ambush shalt thou come
Unscathed; then let another bear thee home!

The Queen, my mother.

Marked of every eye.

For that I go!

Thou shalt be borne on high!

That were like pride!

Thy mother’s hands shall share
Thy carrying.

Nay; I need not such soft care!

So soft?

Whate’er it be, I have earned it well!

Fell, fell art thou; and to a doom so fell
Thou walkest, that thy name from South to North
Shall shine, a sign for ever!—Reach thou forth
Thine arms, Agâvê, now, and ye dark-browed
Cadmeian sisters! Greet this prince so proud
To the high ordeal, where save God and me,
None walks unscathed!—The rest this day shall see.

O hounds raging and blind,
Up by the mountain road,
Sprites of the maddened mind,
To the wild Maids of God;
Fill with your rage their eyes,
Rage at the rage unblest,
Watching in woman’s guise,
The spy upon God’s Possessed.

Who shall be first, to mark
Eyes in the rock that spy,
Eyes in the pine-tree dark—
Is it his mother?—and cry:
“Lo, what is this that comes,
Haunting, troubling still,
Even in our heights, our homes,
The wild Maids of the Hill?
What flesh bare this child?
Never on woman’s breast
Changeling so evil smiled;
Man is he not, but Beast!
Lion-shape of the wild,
Gorgon-breed of the waste!”

Hither, for doom and deed!
Hither with lifted sword,
Justice, Wrath of the Lord,
Come in our visible need!
Smite till the throat shall bleed,
Smite till the heart shall bleed,
Him the tyrannous, lawless, Godless, Echîon’s earth-born seed!

Tyrannously hath he trod;
Marched him, in Law’s despite,
Against thy Light, O God,
Yea, and thy Mother’s Light;
Girded him, falsely bold,
Blinded in craft, to quell
And by man’s violence hold
Things unconquerable.

A strait pitiless mind
Is death unto godliness;
And to feel in human kind
Life, and a pain the less.
Knowledge, we are not foes!
I seek thee diligently;
But the world with a great wind blows,
Shining, and not from thee;
Blowing to beautiful things,
On, amid dark and light,
Till Life, through the trammellings
Of Laws that are not the Right,
Breaks, clean and pure, and sings
Glorying to God in the height!

Hither for doom and deed!
Hither with lifted sword,
Justice, Wrath of the Lord,
Come in our visible need!
Smite till the throat shall bleed,
Smite till the heart shall bleed,
Him the tyrannous, lawless, Godless, Echîon’s earth-born seed!

Appear, appear, whatso thy shape or name
O Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads,
Lion of Burning Flame!
O God, Beast, Mystery, come! Thy mystic maids
Are hunted!—Blast their hunter with thy breath,
Cast o’er his head thy snare;
And laugh aloud and drag him to his death,
Who stalks thy herded madness in its lair!

Woe to the house once blest in Hellas! Woe
To thee, old King Sidonian, who didst sow
The dragon-seed on Ares’ bloody lea!
Alas, even thy slaves must weep for thee!

News from the mountain?—Speak! How hath it sped?

Pentheus, my king, Echîon’s son, is dead!

All hail, God of the Voice,
Manifest ever more!

What say’st thou?—And how strange thy tone, as though
In joy at this my master’s overthrow!

With fierce joy I rejoice,
Child of a savage shore;
For the chains of my prison are broken, and the dread
where I cowered of yore!

And deem’st thou Thebes so beggared, so forlorn
Of manhood, as to sit beneath thy scorn?

Thebes hath o’er me no sway!
None save Him I obey,
Dionysus, Child of the Highest, Him I obey and adore!

One can forgive thee!—Yet ’tis no fair thing,
Maids, to rejoice in a man’s suffering.

Speak of the mountain side!
Tell us the doom he died,
The sinner smitten to death, even where his sin was sore!

We climbed beyond the utmost habitings
Of Theban shepherds, passed Asopus’ springs,
And struck into the land of rock on dim
Kithaeron—Pentheus, and, attending him,
I, and the Stranger who should guide our way.
Then first in a green dell we stopped, and lay,
Lips dumb and feet unmoving, warily
Watching, to be unseen and yet to see.
A narrow glen it was, by crags o’ertowered,
Torn through by tossing waters, and there lowered
A shadow of great pines over it. And there
The Maenad maidens sate; in toil they were,
Busily glad. Some with an ivy chain
Tracked a worn wand to toss its locks again;
Some, wild in joyance, like young steeds set free,
Made answering songs of mystic melody.
But my poor master saw not the great band
Before him. “Stranger,” cried he, “where we stand
Mine eyes can reach not these false saints of thine.
Mount we the bank, or some high-shouldered pine,
And I shall see their follies clear!” At that
There came a marvel. For the Stranger straight
Touched a great pine-tree’s high and heavenward crown,
And lower, lower, lower, urged it down
To the herbless floor. Round like a bending bow,
Or slow wheel’s rim a joiner forces to,
So in those hands that tough and mountain stem
Bowed slow—oh, strength not mortal dwelt in them!—
To the very earth. And there he set the King,
And slowly, lest it cast him in its spring,
Let back the young and straining tree, till high
It towered again amid the towering sky;
And Pentheus in the branches! Well, I ween,
He saw the Maenads then, and well was seen!
For scarce was he aloft, when suddenly
There was no Stranger any more with me,
But out of Heaven a Voice—oh, what voice else?—
‘Twas He that called! “Behold, O damosels,
I bring ye him who turneth to despite
Both me and ye, and darkeneth my great Light.
‘Tis yours to avenge!” So spake he, and there came
‘Twixt earth and sky a pillar of high flame.
And silence took the air, and no leaf stirred
In all the forest dell. Thou hadst not heard
In that vast silence any wild thing’s cry.
And up they sprang; but with bewildered eye,
Agaze and listening, scarce yet hearing true.
Then came the Voice again. And when they knew
Their God’s clear call, old Cadmus’ royal brood,
Up, like wild pigeons startled in a wood,
On flying feet they came, his mother blind,
Agâvê, and her sisters, and behind
All the wild crowd, more deeply maddened then,
Through the angry rocks and torrent-tossing glen,
Until they spied him in the dark pine-tree:
Then climbed a crag hard by and furiously
Some sought to stone him, some their wands would fling
Lance-wise aloft, in cruel targeting.
But none could strike. The height o’ertopped their rage,
And there he clung, unscathed, as in a cage
Caught. And of all their strife no end was found.
Then, “Hither,” cried Agâvê; “stand we round
And grip the stem, my Wild Ones, till we take
This climbing cat-o’-the-mount! He shall not make
A tale of God’s high dances!” Out then shone
Arm upon arm, past count, and closed upon
The pine, and gripped; and the ground gave, and down
It reeled. And that high sitter from the crown
Of the green pine-top, with a shrieking cry
Fell, as his mind grew clear, and there hard by
Was horror visible. ‘Twas his mother stood
O’er him, first priestess of those rites of blood.
He tore the coif, and from his head away
Flung it, that she might know him, and not slay
To her own misery. He touched the wild
Cheek, crying: “Mother, it is I, thy child,
Thy Pentheus, born thee in Echîon’s hall!
Have mercy, Mother! Let it not befall
Through sin of mine, that thou shouldst slay thy son!”
But she, with lips a-foam and eyes that run
Like leaping fire, with thoughts that ne’er should be
On earth, possessed by Bacchios utterly,
Stays not nor hears. Round his left arm she put
Both hands, set hard against his side her foot,
Drew . . . and the shoulder severed!—Not by might
Of arm, but easily, as the God made light
Her hand’s essay. And at the other side
Was Ino rending; and the torn flesh cried,
And on Autonoë pressed, and all the crowd
Of ravening arms. Yea, all the air was loud
With groans that faded into sobbing breath,
Dim shrieks, and joy, and triumph-cries of death.
And here was borne a severed arm, and there
A hunter’s booted foot; white bones lay bare
With rending; and swift hands ensanguinèd
Tossed as in sport the flesh of Pentheus dead.
His body lies afar. The precipice
Hath part, and parts in many an interstice
Lurk of the tangled woodland—no light quest
To find. And, ah, the head! Of all the rest,
His mother hath it, pierced upon a wand,
As one might pierce a lion’s, and through the land,
Leaving her sisters in their dancing place,
Bears it on high! Yea, to these walls her face
Was set, exulting in her deed of blood,
Calling upon her Bromios, her God,
Her Comrade, Fellow-Render of the Prey,
Her All-Victorious, to whom this day
She bears in triumph . . . her own broken heart!
For me, after that sight, I will depart
Before Agâvê comes.—Oh, to fulfil
God’s laws, and have no thought beyond His will,
Is man’s best treasure. Aye, and wisdom true,
Methinks, for things of dust to cleave unto!

Weave ye the dance, and call
Praise to God!
Bless ye the Tyrant’s fall!
Down is trod
Pentheus, the Dragon’s Seed!
Wore he the woman’s weed?
Clasped he his death indeed,
Clasped the rod?

Yea, the wild ivy lapt him, and the doomed
Wild Bull of Sacrifice before him loomed!

Ye who did Bromios scorn,
Praise Him the more,
Bacchanals, Cadmus-born;
Praise with sore
Agony, yea, with tears!
Great are the gifts he bears!
Hands that a mother rears
Red with gore!

But stay, Agâvê cometh! And her eyes
Make fire around her, reeling! Ho, the prize
Cometh! All hail, O Rout of Dionyse!

Ye from the lands of Morn!

Call me not; I give praise!

Lo, from the trunk new-shorn
Hither a Mountain Thorn
Bear we! O Asia-born
Bacchanals, bless this chase!

I see. Yea; I see.
Have I not welcomed thee?

He was young in the wildwood:
Without nets I caught him!
Nay; look without fear on
The Lion; I have ta’en him!

Where in the wildwood?
Whence have ye brought him?

Kithaeron. . . .