Andromeda and Other Poems, by Charles Kingsley

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

ANDROMEDA AND OTHER POEMS

Contents:

   Andromeda
   Hypotheses Hypochondriacæ
   Trehill Well
   In an Illuminated Missal
   The Weird Lady
   Palinodia
   A Hope
   The Poetry of a Root Crop
   Child Ballad
   Airly Beacon
   Sappho
   The Bad Squire
   Scotch Song
   The Young Knight
   A New Forest Ballad
   The Red King
   The Outlaw
   Sing Heigh-ho!
   A March
   A Lament
   The Night Bird
   The Dead Church
   A Parable from Liebig
   The Starlings
   Old and New
   The Watchman
   The World’s Age
   The Sands of Dee
   The Tide Rock
   Elegiacs
   Dartside
   My Hunting Song
   Alton Locke’s Song
   The Day of the Lord
   A Christmas Carol
   The Oubit
   The Three Fishers
   Sonnet
   Margaret to Dolcino
   Dolcino to Margaret
   The Ugly Princess
   Sonnet
   The Swan-neck
   A Thought from the Rhine
   The Longbeards’ Saga.  A.D. 400
   Saint Maura.  A.D. 304
   On the Death of a Certain Journal
   Down to the Mothers
   To Miss Mitford
   Ballad of Earl Haldan’s Daughter
   Frank Leigh’s Song.  A.D. 1586
   Ode to the North-east Wind
   A Farewell
   To G. A. G.
   The South Wind
   The Invitation
   The Find
   Fishing Song
   The Last Buccaneer
   The Knight’s Return
   Pen-y-gwrydd
   Ode
   Songs from ‘The Water-babies’
      The Tide River
      Young and Old
      The Summer Sea
      My Little Doll
   The Knight’s Leap
   The Song of the Little Baltung.  A.D. 395
   On the Death of Leopold, King of the Belgians
   Easter Week
   Drifting Away
   Christmas Day
   September 21, 1870
   The Mango-tree
   The Priest’s Heart
   ‘Qu’est Qu’il Dit’
   The Legend of La Brea
   Hymn
   The Delectable Day
   Juventus Mundi
   Valentine’s Day
   Ballad
   Martin Lightfoot’s Song

ANDROMEDA

Over the sea, past Crete, on the Syrian shore to the southward,
Dwells in the well-tilled lowland a dark-haired Æthiop people,
Skilful with needle and loom, and the arts of the dyer and carver,
Skilful, but feeble of heart; for they know not the lords of Olympus,
Lovers of men; neither broad-browed Zeus, nor Pallas Athené,
Teacher of wisdom to heroes, bestower of might in the battle;
Share not the cunning of Hermes, nor list to the songs of Apollo.
Fearing the stars of the sky, and the roll of the blue salt water,
Fearing all things that have life in the womb of the seas and the livers,
Eating no fish to this day, nor ploughing the main, like the Phœnics,
Manful with black-beaked ships, they abide in a sorrowful region,
Vexed with the earthquake, and flame, and the sea-floods, scourge of Poseidon.
   Whelming the dwellings of men, and the toils of the slow-footed oxen,
Drowning the barley and flax, and the hard-earned gold of the harvest,
Up to the hillside vines, and the pastures skirting the woodland,
Inland the floods came yearly; and after the waters a monster,
Bred of the slime, like the worms which are bred from the slime of the Nile-bank,
Shapeless, a terror to see; and by night it swam out to the seaward,
Daily returning to feed with the dawn, and devoured of the fairest,
Cattle, and children, and maids, till the terrified people fled inland.
   Fasting in sackcloth and ashes they came, both the king and his people,
Came to the mountain of oaks, to the house of the terrible sea-gods,
Hard by the gulf in the rocks, where of old the world-wide deluge
Sank to the inner abyss; and the lake where the fish of the goddess,
Holy, undying, abide; whom the priests feed daily with dainties.
There to the mystical fish, high-throned in her chamber of cedar,
Burnt they the fat of the flock; till the flame shone far to the seaward.
Three days fasting they prayed; but the fourth day the priests of the goddess,
Cunning in spells, cast lots, to discover the crime of the people.
All day long they cast, till the house of the monarch was taken,
Cepheus, king of the land; and the faces of all gathered blackness.
Then once more they cast; and Cassiopœia was taken,
Deep-bosomed wife of the king, whom oft far-seeing Apollo
Watched well-pleased from the welkin, the fairest of Æthiop women:
Fairest, save only her daughter; for down to the ankle her tresses
Rolled, blue-black as the night, ambrosial, joy to beholders.
Awful and fair she arose, most like in her coming to Here,
Queen before whom the Immortals arise, as she comes on Olympus,
Out of the chamber of gold, which her son Hephæstos has wrought her.
Such in her stature and eyes, and the broad white light of her forehead.
Stately she came from her place, and she spoke in the midst of the people.
   ‘Pure are my hands from blood: most pure this heart in my bosom.
Yet one fault I remember this day; one word have I spoken;
Rashly I spoke on the shore, and I dread lest the sea should have heard it.
Watching my child at her bath, as she plunged in the joy of her girlhood,
Fairer I called her in pride than Atergati, queen of the ocean.
Judge ye if this be my sin, for I know none other.’  She ended;
Wrapping her head in her mantle she stood, and the people were silent.
   Answered the dark-browed priests, ‘No word, once spoken, returneth,
Even if uttered unwitting.  Shall gods excuse our rashness?
That which is done, that abides; and the wrath of the sea is against us;
Hers, and the wrath of her brother, the Sun-god, lord of the sheepfolds.
Fairer than her hast thou boasted thy daughter?  Ah folly! for hateful,
Hateful are they to the gods, whoso, impious, liken a mortal,
Fair though he be, to their glory; and hateful is that which is likened,
Grieving the eyes of their pride, and abominate, doomed to their anger.
What shall be likened to gods?  The unknown, who deep in the darkness
Ever abide, twyformed, many-handed, terrible, shapeless.
Woe to the queen; for the land is defiled, and the people accursed.
Take thou her therefore by night, thou ill-starred Cassiopœia,
Take her with us in the night, when the moon sinks low to the westward;
Bind her aloft for a victim, a prey for the gorge of the monster,
Far on the sea-girt rock, which is washed by the surges for ever;
So may the goddess accept her, and so may the land make atonement,
Purged by her blood from its sin: so obey thou the doom of the rulers.’
   Bitter in soul they went out, Cepheus and Cassiopœia,
Bitter in soul; and their hearts whirled round, as the leaves in the eddy.
Weak was the queen, and rebelled: but the king, like a shepherd of people,
Willed not the land should waste; so he yielded the life of his daughter.
   Deep in the wane of the night, as the moon sank