HE was not fair to look on as a god—
Her husband whom God gave her; for his face,
Not as the golden face of Phœbus glowed;
Nor in his body was there light or grace;
But he was rugged-seeming; all his brows
Were changed and smeared with the great human toil;
His limbs all gnarled and knotted as the boughs
And limbs of mighty oaks are: many a soil
Was on his skin, coarse-coloured as a bark;
Yea, he was shorn of beauty from the birth;
But strong, and of a mighty soul to work
With Fate and all the iron of the earth.
Thereto he had a heart even to love
That woman whom God gave him; and his part
Of fate had been quite blest—ay, sweet enough,
Having her beautiful and whole of heart.
But when he knew she was quite false and vain,
He slew her not because she was so fair;
Yea, spite of all the rest, had rather slain
Himself, than lost the looking on her hair.
For then the labouring days had seemed to last
Longer than ever: all had been too sore,
Not to be borne as erst,—the world so vast—
Vaster than ever it had seemed before!
But, when he knew it, heavily the ire—
Darkly the sorrow of it wrought on him;
The hollows of his eyes were filled with fire;
The fruitless sweat was dried upon each limb:
Raging he went, and full of lust to kill:
O he was fillèd with a great despair;
But added labour unto labour still,
And slew her not because she was so fair.
In all of life was nothing that atoned
For that hard fate: in hearing of all heaven,
About the iron mountain world he groaned;
But no return of pitying was given.
The iron echoes in a mighty blast
Flung up his voice toward the sweet abodes
In the blue heaven: his pain was known at last
In every palace of the painless gods.
He had no part but wholly to upbraid
Them,—meters of his evil measured fate,
Who first made fair, then spoiled the thing they made,
And mingled all their gifts with love and hate.
Yet he was moved at length some way to win
Vengeance, and all at once, on her and Him—
That god with whom she rather chose to sin
Than with a man to love: when earth was dim—
Full of unearthly shadows in the night,
He came upon those lovers unaware;
And fairly caught them locked in their delight:
Limb over limb he bound them in a snare.
For first with all his craft he did invent
A curious toil of meshes, strongly set
With supple fibrous thread and branches bent:
Full tightly they were bounden in that net.
Yet, not until with many a growing gray
And change that wrought among the shifting shade,
Day—softly changing all things—warned away
Their loves and sins, knew they the fate they had.
And when they were but striving to undo
Delicious bonds of love that needs no chain,
Then were they held:—though love had let them go
A stronger bond than love’s bade them remain.
And, spite of many a throe of sudden strength,
And all their tortuous striving to be free;
Yea, they were held:—till the sun came at length,
And all the gods came out of heaven to see.
For there they saw and knew Him from afar,
Vanquished and in no honourable plight,
No less a god than Ares god of war,
Ares the red and royal in all fight;
But now quite shorn indeed of arms and fame,
Spoiled of his helm and harness of each limb;
Yea, quite inglorious and brought to shame
For a mere love, with such rude stratagem!
The golden peals of god-like laughter brake
And rang down beautiful beneath the sun;
For well they saw, indeed, for whose fair sake
Their brother was so fallen and undone.
Phœbus himself, with many a secret pride
Of love—unshamed in any of his loves—
Leant on his golden bow, and laughed aside,
And made some fair light saying that still moves
From lips to lips at all the mirthful feasts
Of them above who have eternal rights
To joys and loves, and wine that never wastes,
And life never to end their days or nights.
And well they knew Hephæstus where, hard by,
He stood, inglorious, daring all their eyes:
The gods all beautiful—they laughed on high
At him, his woes and all his blasphemies.
But surely never was there such a play
For mirth of idle gods!—Nor such a shame
Ever become of love, as on that day
In sight of all the gods their love became!
Who were betrayed so,—in whatever sin
Lips could with lips, face could with face commit,
Yea lips or limbs of lovers could begin,—
That they were bound and kept quite close in it:
For vainly in the meshes of that snare
They strove, with shuddering limbs and starting cries,
Entangled more with many a mesh of hair
Caught in the manifold intricacies!
So She was found indeed most beautiful,
Yet full of shame and false in all she was;
So before gods who make and gods who rule,
And him her husband, she was found, alas!
Yet, after all, Hephæstus—he, her lord—
For all that sin, her death he would not have;
But, for his love’s sake and great Phœbus’ word,