Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.
Ariadne at Naxos
By Thomas Davidson (1838–1870)H
As the day began to waken,
All alone sat Ariadne,
Watching, weary, and forsaken:
With her dark dishevelled tresses
Dank with dewdrops of the night,
And her face all wan and haggard,
Still she waited on the height:
Watching, praying that the morning
Might reveal her love returning,
Swiftly o’er the quivering water;
To the lonely isle returning,
And the king’s deserted daughter.
From the chamber of her rest,
Came, with queenly step, the Morning,
Journeying onward to the west:
And the glory of her presence
Tinged the sea and filled the air,
Smote the lofty Hill of Drios,
And the lonely watcher there;
Yet no bark across the water
Came to lighten her despair.
But with sighing of the pine-trees,
By the low wind gently shaken,
All day long in mournful snatches
Rose the plaint of Ariadne,
Watching, weary, and forsaken.
Is breaking o’er yon eastern land,
That mid the light, a long dark band,
Lies dim and shadowy far away;
And still from morn till eve I ’ve scanned
That weary sea from strand to strand,
To mark his sail against the spray.
In vain! in vain! The morning ray
Shows not his bark mid all the seas,
Though I may trace from where I stand
All the flowery Cyclades.
Those lonely hours have crept away!
And yet it seems but yesterday
That, sailing o’er the Cretan Sea,
I watched the melting shadows gray,
And hailed the dawn as emblem gay
Of all the rapture yet to be,
When I with him should wander free,
Through fair Ilissus’ bowers of green.
But now my love has gone for aye,
And I am left alone alway,
To brood o’er all that might have been!
Before the dark-eyed stranger came
To light with love the fatal flame
That aye will burn within my breast!
The maids of Crete had named my name,
Nor thought of love, nor yet of shame,
But of a sister pure and chaste,
In death’s cold arms untimely pressed,
And all from joy and sorrow reft:
He might have lived his life of fame,
And I had ne’er been loved and left.
“Or had the North Wind woke from sleep,
As with our dark sails all outspread,
Across the southern wave we fled,—
Down in the great sea’s twilight deep,
Some silent grot had been our bed,
Where many a long-haired Nereid,
With ocean-flowers all garlanded,
Had knelt by our low couch to weep:
But softly o’er the brine the breeze did creep,
Bearing us all too gently on our way;
While I of strong Poseidon prayed
To guard the life I mourn to-day!
Ere clouds of woe began to lower,
When life stretched all so bright before,
And love was warm and hope was high;
Of moonlight nights beside the shore,
When by the infinite heaven he swore,
And every star that gemmed it o’er,
That love like his could never die:
Unbidden guests of mine adversity!
Dead hopes and haunting memories of the past,
That cling about my heart forevermore,
O, to forget you all, and die and be at rest!
Beyond death’s portal dark and grim,
Where Nature whispers that I soon shall be;
For robes of rest I cannot see
Seem folding round each languid limb;
My weary eyes are waxing dim,
Scarce may I hear the evening hymn
The birds are chanting joyously:—
But O, for one more glimpse of thee,
Theseus! before mine eyelids sink for aye,—
Or of thy sail beneath the westering day,
O’er the horizon’s utmost rim,
Looming far away!”
The fair moon rose, dispensing silvery light;
And softly fell the tears of mother Night
O’er the outwearied watcher where she lay,
Till in the orient dawned again the Day,
And all for joy o’er his triumphant birth
Arose the hymnéd praises of the Earth:
The River murmured, rolling on his way;
The wind-swept forest sighed, and carols gay
The wild bird lilted from the dewy brake,—
But Ariadne sleeps, and nevermore shall wake!