{"id":2997,"date":"2013-07-13T01:45:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2997"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:45:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:45:14","slug":"27-two-poems-in-quantitative-hexameters-vol-02-collected-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/02-collected-poems\/27-two-poems-in-quantitative-hexameters-vol-02-collected-poems","title":{"rendered":"-27_Two Poems in Quantitative Hexameters.html"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

 <\/td>\n

\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n
\nPart Five<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPondicherry<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nCirca 1910 \u00ad 1920<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nTwo Poems in <\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tQuantitative Hexameters<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nIlion<\/font><\/i> <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tBOOK I<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Book of the Herald<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDawn in her journey eternal compelling the labour of mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDawn the beginner of things with the night for their rest or their ending,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPallid and bright-lipped arrived from the mists and the chill of the Euxine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth in the dawn-fire delivered from starry and shadowy vastness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWoke to the wonder of life and its passion and sorrow and beauty,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll on her bosom sustaining, the patient compassionate Mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of the formless vision of Night with its look on things hidden<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGiven to the gaze of the azure she lay in her garment of greenness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWearing light on her brow. In the dawn-ray lofty and voiceless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIda climbed with her god-haunted peaks into diamond lustres,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nIda first of the hills with the ranges silent beyond her<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWatching the dawn in their giant companies, as since the ages<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst began they had watched her, upbearing Time on their summits.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTroas cold on her plain awaited the boon of the sunshine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThere, like a hope through an emerald dream sole-pacing for ever,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStealing to wideness beyond, crept Simois lame in his currents,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGuiding his argent thread mid the green of the reeds and the grasses.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeadlong, impatient of Space and its boundaries, Time and its slowness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nXanthus clamoured aloud as he ran to the far-surging waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJoining his call to the many-voiced roar of the mighty Aegean,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnswering Ocean’s limitless cry like a whelp to its parent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tForests looked up through their rifts, the ravines grew aware of their
\nshadows.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCloser now gliding glimmered the golden feet of the goddess.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOver the hills and the headlands spreading her garment of splendour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFateful she came with her eyes impartial looking on all things,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBringer to man of the day of his fortune and day of his downfall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFull of her luminous errand, careless of eve and its weeping,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFateful she paused unconcerned above Ilion’s mysteried greatness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDomes like shimmering tongues of the crystal flames of the morning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOpalesque rhythm-line of tower-tops, notes of the lyre of the sungod.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHigh over all that a nation had built and its love and its laughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLighting the last time highway and homestead, market and temple,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLooking on men who must die and women destined to sorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 335<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nLooking on beauty fire must lay low and the sickle of slaughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFateful she lifted the doom-scroll red with the script of the Immortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDeep in the invisible air that folds in the race and its morrows<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFixed it, and passed on smiling the smile of the griefless and
\n\t\t\tdeathless,  \u2014 <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nDealers of death though death they know not, who in the morning<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tScatter the seed of the event for the reaping ready at nightfall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOver the brooding of plains and the agelong trance of the summits<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOut of the sun and its spaces she came, pausing tranquil and fatal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd, at a distance followed by the golden herds of the sungod,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCarried the burden of Light and its riddle and danger to Hellas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven as fleets on a chariot divine through the gold streets of ether,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSwiftly when Life fleets, invisibly changing the arc of the soul-drift,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd, with the choice that has chanced or the fate man has called and now suffers<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeighted, the moment travels driving the past towards the future,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly its face and its feet are seen, not the burden it carries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth sees not; life’s clamour deafens the ear of the spirit:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMan knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOnly he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his heart’s ignorant whisper,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhistle of winds in the tree-tops of Time and the rustle of Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow too the messenger hastened driving the car of the errand:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven while dawn was a gleam in the east, he had cried to his coursers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHalf yet awake in light’s turrets started the scouts of the morning<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHearing the jar of the wheels and the throb of the hooves’ exultation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHooves of the horses of Greece as they galloped to Phrygian Troya.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nProudly they trampled through Xanthus thwarting the foam of his anger,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhinnying high as in scorn crossed Simois’ tangled currents,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nXanthus’ reed-girdled twin, the gentle and sluggard river.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOne and unarmed in the car was the driver; grey was he, shrunken,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWorn with his decades. To Pergama cinctured with strength Cyclopean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOld and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCarrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIlion, couchant, saw him arrive from the sea and the darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeard mid the faint slow stirrings of life in the sleep of the city,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRapid there neared a running of feet, and the cry of the summons<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBeat round the doors that guarded the domes of the splendour of Priam.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 336<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Wardens charged with the night, ye who stand in Laomedon’s gateway,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWaken the Ilian kings. Talthybius, herald of Argos,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nParleying stands at the portals of Troy in the grey of the dawning.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHigh and insistent the call. In the dimness and hush of his chamber<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCharioted far in his dreams amid visions of glory and terror,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tScenes of a vivider world, 
\n\t\t\t\u2014  though blurred and deformed in the brain-cells,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVague and inconsequent, there full of colour and beauty and greatness,  \u2014
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSuddenly drawn by the pull of the conscious thread of the earth-bond<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd of the needs of Time and the travail assigned in the transience<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWarned by his body, Deiphobus, reached in that splendid remoteness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTouched through the nerve-ways of life that branch to the brain of the dreamer,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeard the terrestrial call and slumber startled receded<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSliding like dew from the mane of a lion. Reluctant he travelled<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBack from the light of the fields beyond death, from the wonderful kingdoms<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhere he had wandered a soul among souls in the countries beyond us,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFree from the toil and incertitude, free from the struggle and danger:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow, compelled, he returned from the respite given to the time-born,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCalled to the strife and the wounds of the earth and the burden of daylight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe from the carven couch upreared his giant stature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHaste-spurred he laved his eyes and regained earth’s memories, haste-spurred<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDonning apparel and armour strode through the town of his fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatched by her gods on his way to his fate, towards Pergama’s portals.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNine long years had passed and the tenth now was wearily ending,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYears of the wrath of the gods, and the leaguer still threatened the ramparts<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSince through a tranquil morn the ships came past Tenedos sailing<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd the first Argive fell slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStill the assailants attacked, still fought back the stubborn defenders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhen the reward is withheld and endlessly lengthens the labour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWeary of fruitless toil grows the transient heart of the mortal.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeary of battle the invaders warring hearthless and homeless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPrayed to the gods for release and return to the land of their fathers:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeary of battle the Phrygians beset in their beautiful city<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPrayed to the gods for an end of the danger and mortal encounter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLong had the high-beached ships forgotten their measureless ocean.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGreece seemed old and strange to her children camped on the beaches,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOld like a life long past one remembers hardly believing<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 337<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut as a dream that has happened, but as the tale of another.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTime with his tardy touch and Nature changing our substance<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlowly had dimmed the faces loved and the scenes once cherished:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet was the dream still dear to them longing for wife and for children,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLonging for hearth and glebe in the far-off valleys of Hellas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlways like waves that swallow the shingles, lapsing, returning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTide of the battle, race of the onset relentlessly thundered<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOver the Phrygian corn-fields. Trojan wrestled with Argive,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCaria, Lycia, Thrace and the war-lord mighty Achaia<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tJoined in the clasp of the fight. Death, panic and wounds and disaster,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlory of conquest and glory of fall, and the empty hearth-side,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWeeping and fortitude, terror and hope and the pang of remembrance,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnguish of hearts, the lives of the warriors, the strength of the nations<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThrown were like weights into Destiny’s scales, but the balance wavered<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPressed by invisible hands. For not only the mortal fighters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeroes half divine whose names are like stars in remoteness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTriumphed and failed and were winds or were weeds on the dance of the surges,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBut from the peaks of Olympus and shimmering summits of Ida<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGleaming and clanging the gods of the antique ages descended.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHidden from human knowledge the brilliant shapes of Immortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMingled unseen in the mellay, or sometimes, marvellous, maskless,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nForms of undying beauty and power that made tremble the heart-strings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tParting their deathless secrecy crossed through the borders of vision,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPlain as of old to the demigods out of their glory emerging,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeard by mortal ears and seen by the eyeballs that perish.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMighty they came from their spaces of freedom and sorrowless splendour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSea-vast, trailing the azure hem of his clamorous waters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBlue-lidded, maned with the Night, Poseidon smote for the future,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEarth-shaker who with his trident releases the coils of the Dragon,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFreeing the forces unborn that are locked in the caverns of Nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm and unmoved, upholding the Word that is Fate and the order<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFixed in the sight of a Will foreknowing and silent and changeless,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHera sent by Zeus and Athene lifting his aegis<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGuarded the hidden decree. But for Ilion, loud as the surges,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAres impetuous called to the fire in men’s hearts, and his passion<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWoke in the shadowy depths the forms of the Titan and demon;<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPage \u2013 338<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nDumb and coerced by the grip of the gods in the abyss of the being,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFormidable, veiled they sit in the grey subconscient darkness<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatching the sleep of the snake-haired Erinnys. Miracled, haloed,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSeer and magician and prophet who beholds what the thought cannot
\nwitness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLifting the godhead within us to more than a human endeavour,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlayer and saviour, thinker and mystic, leaped from his sun-peaks<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGuarding in Ilion the wall of his mysteries Delphic Apollo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHeaven’s strengths divided swayed in the whirl of the Earth-force.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAll that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGoal seems there none for the ball that is chased throughout Time by the
\nFate-teams;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEvil once ended renews and no issue comes out of living:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly an Eye unseen can distinguish the thread of its workings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSuch seemed the rule of the pastime of Fate on the plains of the Troad;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll went backwards and forwards tossed in the swing of the death-game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVain was the toil of the heroes, the blood of the mighty was squandered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSpray as of surf on the cliffs when it moans unappeased, unrequited<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAge after fruitless age. Day hunted the steps of the nightfall;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nJoy succeeded to grief; defeat only greatened the vanquished,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVictory offered an empty delight without guerdon or profit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEnd there was none of the effort and end there was none of the failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTriumph and agony changing hands in a desperate measure<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFaced and turned as a man and a maiden trampling the grasses<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFace and turn and they laugh in their joy of the dance and each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThese were gods and they trampled lives. But though Time is immortal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArtists of Nature content with their work in the plan of the transience,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBeautiful, deathless, august, the Olympians turned from the carnage,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLeaving the battle already decided, leaving the heroes<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSlain in their minds, Troy burned, Greece left to her glory and downfall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nInto their heavens they rose up mighty like eagles ascending<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFanning the world with their wings. As the great to their luminous mansions<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTurn from the cry and the strife, forgetting the wounded and fallen,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm they repose from their toil and incline to the joy of the banquet,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWatching the feet of the wine-bearers rosily placed on the marble,<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nPage \u2013 339<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nFilling their hearts with ease, so they to their sorrowless ether<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPassed from the wounded earth and its air that is ploughed with men’s
\nanguish;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm they reposed and their hearts inclined to the joy and the silence.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLifted was the burden laid on our wills by their starry presence:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMan was restored to his smallness, the world to its inconscient labour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLife felt a respite from height, the winds breathed freer delivered;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLight was released from their blaze and the earth was released from their
\ngreatness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut their immortal content from the struggle titanic departed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVacant the noise of the battle roared like the sea on the shingles;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWearily hunted the spears their quarry; strength was disheartened;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSilence increased with the march of the months on the tents of the leaguer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut not alone on the Achaians the steps of the moments fell heavy;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSlowly the shadow deepened on Ilion mighty and scornful:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDragging her days went by; in the rear of the hearts of her people<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSomething that knew what they dared not know and the mind would not utter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSomething that smote at her soul of defiance and beauty and laughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDarkened the hours. For Doom in her sombre and giant uprising<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNeared, assailing the skies: the sense of her lived in all pastimes;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTime was pursued by unease and a terror woke in the midnight:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven the ramparts felt her, stones that the gods had erected.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow no longer she dallied and played, but bounded and hastened,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeeing before her the end and, imagining massacre calmly,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLaughed and admired the flames and rejoiced in the cry of the captives.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nUnder her, dead to the watching immortals, Deiphobus hastened<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClanging in arms through the streets of the beautiful insolent city,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrilliant, a gleaming husk but empty and left by the daemon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEven as a star long extinguished whose light still travels the spaces,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeen in its form by men, but itself goes phantom-like fleeting<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoid and null and dark through the uncaring infinite vastness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSo now he seemed to the sight that sees all things from the Real.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTimeless its vision of Time creates the hour by things coming.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBorne on a force from the past and no more by a power for the future<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMighty and bright was his body, but shadowy the shape of his spirit<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnly an eidolon seemed of the being that had lived in him, fleeting<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 340<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nVague like a phantom seen by the dim Acherontian waters.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut to the guardian towers that watched over Pergama’s gateway<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of the waking city Deiphobus swiftly arriving<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalled, and swinging back the huge gates slowly, reluctant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFlung Troy wide to the entering Argive. Ilion’s portals<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tParted admitting her destiny, then with a sullen and iron<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCry they closed. Mute, staring, grey like a wolf descended<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOld Talthybius, propping his steps on the staff of his errand;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFeeble his body, but fierce still his glance with the fire within him;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSpeechless and brooding he gazed on the hated and coveted city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSuddenly, seeking heaven with her buildings hewn as for Titans,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMarvellous, rhythmic, a child of the gods with marble for raiment,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSmiting the vision with harmony, splendid and mighty and golden,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIlion stood up around him entrenched in her giant defences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStrength was uplifted on strength and grandeur supported by grandeur;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBeauty lay in her lap. Remote, hieratic and changeless,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFilled with her deeds and her dreams her gods looked out on the Argive,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelpless and dumb with his hate as he gazed on her, they too like mortals<\/span><\/p>\n

\nKnowing their centuries past, not knowing the morrow before them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDire were his eyes upon Troya the beautiful, his face like a doom-mask:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAll Greece gazed in them, hated, admired, grew afraid, grew relentless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut to the Greek Deiphobus cried and he turned from his passion<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFixing his ominous eyes with the god in them straight on the Trojan:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Messenger, voice of Achaia, wherefore confronting the daybreak<\/span><\/p>\n

\nComest thou driving thy car from the sleep of the tents that besiege us?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFateful, I deem, was the thought that, conceived in the silence of midnight,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRaised up thy aged limbs from the couch of their rest in the stillness,  \u2014
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThoughts of a mortal but forged by the Will that uses our members<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd of its promptings our speech and our acts are the tools and the image.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOft from the veil and the shadow they leap out like stars in their brightness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLights that we think our own, yet they are but tokens and counters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSigns of the Forces that flow through us serving a Power that is secret.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat in the dawning bringst thou to Troya the mighty and dateless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow in the ending of Time when the gods are weary of struggle?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSends Agamemnon challenge or courtesy, Greek, to the Trojans?”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHigh like the northwind answered the voice of the doom from Achaia:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“Trojan Deiphobus, daybreak, silence of night and the evening<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n

\nSink and arise and even the strong sun rests from his splendour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNot for the servant is rest nor Time is his, only his death-pyre.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nI have not come from the monarch of men or the armoured assembly<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeld on the wind-swept marge of the thunder and laughter of ocean.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne in his singleness greater than kings and multitudes sends me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tI am a voice out of Phthia, I am the will of the Hellene.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPeace in my right I bring to you, death in my left hand. Trojan,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tProudly receive them, honour the gifts of the mighty Achilles.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDeath accept, if Ate deceives you and Doom is your lover,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPeace if your fate can turn and the god in you chooses to hearken.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFull is my heart and my lips are impatient of speech undelivered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIt was not made for the streets or the market, nor to be uttered<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMeanly to common ears, but where counsel and majesty harbour<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFar from the crowd in the halls of the great and to wisdom and foresight<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSecrecy whispers, there I will speak among Ilion’s princes.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Envoy,” answered the Laomedontian, “voice of Achilles,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVain is the offer of peace that sets out with a threat for its prelude.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet will we hear thee. Arise who are fleetest of foot in the
\n\t\t\tgateway,  \u2014 <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThou, Thrasymachus, haste. Let the domes of the mansion of Ilus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWake to the bruit of the Hellene challenge. Summon Aeneas.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEven as the word sank back into stillness, doffing his mantle<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStarted to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFirst in the race and the battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe in the dawn disappeared into swiftness. Deiphobus slowly,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMeasuring Fate with his thoughts in the troubled vasts of his spirit,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBack through the stir of the city returned to the house of his fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTaming his mighty stride to the pace infirm of the Argive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut with the god in his feet Thrasymachus rapidly running<\/span><\/p>\n

\nCame to the halls in the youth of the wonderful city by Ilus<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBuilt for the joy of the eye; for he rested from war and, triumphant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nReigned adored by the prostrate nations. Now when all ended,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLast of its mortal possessors to walk in its flowering gardens,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGreat Anchises lay in that luminous house of the ancients<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSoothing his restful age, the far-warring victor Anchises,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHigh Bucoleon’s son and the father of Rome by a goddess;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLonely and vagrant once in his boyhood divine upon Ida<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhite Aphrodite ensnared him and she loosed her ambrosial girdle<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSeeking a mortal’s love. On the threshold Thrasymachus halted<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLooking for servant or guard, but felt only a loneness of slumber<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDrawing the soul’s sight within away from its life and things human;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSoundless, unheeding, the vacant corridors fled into darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe to the shades of the house and the dreams of the echoing rafters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTrusted his high-voiced call, and from chambers still dim in their twilight<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStrong Aeneas armoured and mantled, leonine striding,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCame, Anchises’ son; for the dawn had not found him reposing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u00a8<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut in the night he had left his couch and the clasp of
\n\t\t\tCre\u00fcsa,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRising from sleep at the call of his spirit that turned to the waters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPrompted by Fate and his mother who guided him, white Aphrodite.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nStill with the impulse of speed Thrasymachus greeted Aeneas:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Hero Aeneas, swift be thy stride to the Ilian hill-top.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDardanid, haste! for the gods are at work; they have risen with the morning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEach from his starry couch, and they labour. Doom, we can see it,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nGlows on their anvils of destiny, clang we can hear of their hammers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSomething they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCalm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nTroy is their stage and Argos their background; we are their puppets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAlways our voices are prompted to speech for an end that we know not,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAlways we think that we drive, but are driven. Action and impulse,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow and helper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow too, deeming he comes with a purpose framed by a mortal,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tShaft of their will they have shot from the bow of the Grecian leaguer,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLashing themselves at his steeds, Talthybius sent by Achilles.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t“Busy the gods are always, Thrasymachus son of Aretes,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWeaving Fate on their looms, and yesterday, now and tomorrow<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAre but the stands they have made with Space and Time for their timber,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFrame but the dance of their shuttle. What eye unamazed by their workings<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEver can pierce where they dwell and uncover their far-stretching purpose?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nSilent they toil, they are hid in the clouds, they are wrapped with the midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nYet to Apollo I pray, the Archer friendly to mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYet to the rider on Fate I abase myself, wielder of thunder,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEvil and doom to avert from my fatherland. All night Morpheus,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHe who with shadowy hands heaps error and truth upon mortals,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\n

\nStood at my pillow with images. Dreaming I erred like a phantom<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHelpless in Ilion’s streets with the fire and the foeman around me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRed was the smoke as it mounted triumphant the house-top of Priam,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClang of the arms of the Greeks was in Troya, and thwarting the clangour<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVoices were crying and calling me over the violent Ocean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBorne by the winds of the West from a land where Hesperus harbours.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBrooding they ceased, for their thoughts grew heavy upon them and voiceless.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThen, in a farewell brief and unthought and unconscious of meaning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tParting they turned to their tasks and their lives now close but soon severed:<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDestined to perish even before his perishing nation,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBack to his watch at the gate sped Thrasymachus rapidly running;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLarge of pace and swift, but with eyes absorbed and unseeing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDriven like a car of the gods by the whip of his thoughts through the
\nhighways,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTurned to his mighty future the hero born of a goddess.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOne was he chosen to ascend into greatness through fall and disaster,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLoser of his world by the will of a heaven that seemed ruthless and adverse,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFounder of a newer and greater world by daring adventure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNow, from the citadel’s rise with the townships crowding below it<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHigh towards a pondering of domes and the mystic Palladium climbing,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFronted with the morning ray and joined by the winds of the ocean,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nFate-weighed up Troy’s slope strode musing strong Aeneas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tUnder him silent the slumbering roofs of the city of Ilus<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDreamed in the light of the dawn; above watched the citadel, sleepless<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLonely and strong like a goddess white-limbed and bright on a hill-top,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLooking far out at the sea and the foe and the prowling of danger.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tOver the brow he mounted and saw the palace of Priam,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHome of the gods of the earth, Laomedon’s marvellous vision<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHeld in the thought that accustomed his will to unearthly achievement<\/span><\/p>\n

\nAnd in the blaze of his spirit compelling heaven with its greatness,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDreamed by the harp of Apollo, a melody caught into marble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOut of his mind it arose like an epic canto by canto;<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEach of its halls was a strophe, its chambers lines of an epode,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nVictor chant of Ilion’s destiny. Absent he entered,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tVoiceless with thought, the brilliant megaron crowded with paintings,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPaved with a splendour of marble, and saw Deiphobus seated,<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n
\nPage \u2013 344<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nSon of the ancient house by the opulent hearth of his fathers,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAnd at his side like a shadow the grey and ominous Argive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHappy of light like a lustrous star when it welcomes the morning,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBrilliant, beautiful, glamoured with gold and a fillet of gem-fire,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nParis, plucked from the song and the lyre by the Grecian challenge,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCame with the joy in his face and his eyes that Fate could not alter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nEver a child of the dawn at play near a turn of the sun-roads,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFacing destiny’s look with the careless laugh of a comrade,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHe with his vision of delight and beauty brightening the earth-field<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPassed through its peril and grief on his way to the ambiguous Shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLast from her chamber of sleep where she lay in the Ilian mansion<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tFar in the heart of the house with the deep-bosomed daughters of Priam,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNoble and tall and erect in a nimbus of youth and of glory,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tClaiming the world and life as a fief of her strength and her courage,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nDawned through a doorway that opened to distant murmurs and laughter,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tCapturing the eye like a smile or a sunbeam, Penthesilea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nShe from the threshold cried to the herald, crossing the marble,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tRegal and fleet, with her voice that was mighty and dire in its sweetness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n“What with such speed has impelled from the wind-haunted beaches of Troas,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nHerald, thy car though the sun yet hesitates under the mountains?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tComest thou humbler to Troy, Talthybius, now than thou camest<\/span><\/p>\n

\nOnce when the streams of my East sang low to my ear, not this Ocean<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tLoud, and I roamed in my mountains uncalled by the voice of Apollo?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nBringest thou dulcet-eyed peace or, sweeter to Penthesilea,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tChallenge of war when the spears fall thick on the shields of the fighters,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLightly the wheels leap onward chanting the anthem of Ares,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDeath is at work in his fields and the heart is enamoured of danger?<\/span><\/p>\n

\nWhat says Odysseus, the baffled Ithacan? what Agamemnon?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tAre they then weary of war who were rapid and bold and triumphant,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nNow that their gods are reluctant, now victory darts not from heaven<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tDown from the clouds above Ida directing the luminous legions<\/span><\/p>\n

\nArmed by Fate, now Pallas forgets, now Poseidon slumbers?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBronze were their throats to the battle like bugles blaring in chorus;<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMercy they knew not, but shouted and ravened and ran to the slaughter<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tEager as hounds when they chase, till a woman met them and stayed them,<\/span><\/p>\n

\nLoud my war-shout rang by Scamander. Herald of Argos,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 345<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Part Five Pondicherry Circa 1910 \u00ad 1920     Two Poems in Quantitative Hexameters     Ilion   BOOK I   The Book of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-collected-poems","wpcat-57-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}