"
"But life is in our hands," she said;
"In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?
"But life is in our hands," she said;
"In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?
Christina Rossetti
"
"Then men were men of might and right,
Sheer might, at least, and weighty swords;
Then men in open blood and fire
Bore witness to their words,--
"Crest-rearing kings with whistling spears;
But if these shivered in the shock
They wrenched up hundred-rooted trees,
Or hurled the effacing rock.
"Then hand to hand, then foot to foot,
Stern to the death-grip grappling then,
Who ever thought of gunpowder
Amongst these men of men?
"They knew whose hand struck home the death,
They knew who broke but would not bend,
Could venerate an equal foe
And scorn a laggard friend.
"Calm in the utmost stress of doom,
Devout toward adverse powers above,
They hated with intenser hate
And loved with fuller love.
"Then heavenly beauty could allay
As heavenly beauty stirred the strife:
By them a slave was worshipped more
Than is by us a wife. "
She laughed again, my sister laughed;
Made answer o'er the laboured cloth:
"I rather would be one of us
Than wife, or slave, or both. "
"Oh better then be slave or wife
Than fritter now blank life away:
Then night had holiness of night,
And day was sacred day.
"The princess laboured at her loom,
Mistress and handmaiden alike;
Beneath their needles grew the field
With warriors armed to strike.
"Or, look again, dim Dian's face
Gleamed perfect through the attendant night:
Were such not better than those holes
Amid that waste of white?
"A shame it is, our aimless life;
I rather from my heart would feed
From silver dish in gilded stall
With wheat and wine the steed--
"The faithful steed that bore my lord
In safety through the hostile land,
The faithful steed that arched his neck
To fondle with my hand. "
Her needle erred; a moment's pause,
A moment's patience, all was well.
Then she: "But just suppose the horse,
Suppose the rider fell?
"Then captive in an alien house,
Hungering on exile's bitter bread,--
They happy, they who won the lot
Of sacrifice," she said.
Speaking she faltered, while her look
Showed forth her passion like a glass:
With hand suspended, kindling eye,
Flushed cheek, how fair she was!
"Ah well, be those the days of dross;
This, if you will, the age of gold:
Yet had those days a spark of warmth,
While these are somewhat cold--
"Are somewhat mean and cold and slow,
Are stunted from heroic growth:
We gain but little when we prove
The worthlessness of both.
"
"But life is in our hands," she said;
"In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?
"Too short a century of dreams,
One day of work sufficient length:
Why should not you, why should not I,
Attain heroic strength?
"Our life is given us as a blank,
Ourselves must make it blest or curst:
Who dooms me I shall only be
The second, not the first?
"Learn from old Homer, if you will,
Such wisdom as his books have said:
In one the acts of Ajax shine,
In one of Diomed.
"Honoured all heroes whose high deeds
Through life, through death, enlarge their span
Only Achilles in his rage
And sloth is less than man. "
"Achilles only less than man?
He less than man who, half a god,
Discomfited all Greece with rest,
Cowed Ilion with a nod?
"He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
Heaped up the sacrifice.
"Self-immolated to his friend,
Shrined in world's wonder, Homer's page,
Is this the man, the less than men
Of this degenerate age? "
"Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
Bleeds the swart lioness. "
But here she paused; our eyes had met,
And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: "I went too far," she said;
Spoke low: "Forgive me, dear.
"To me our days seem pleasant days,
Our home a haven of pure content;
Forgive me if I said too much,
So much more than I meant.
"Homer, though greater than his gods,
With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
To us who learn of Christ? "
The much-moved pathos of her voice,
Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
Which only made her speak.
For mild she was, of few soft words,
Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke,
And reverence what I said:
I elder sister by six years;
Not half so glad, or wise, or good:
Her words rebuked my secret self
And shamed me where I stood.
She never guessed her words reproved
A silent envy nursed within,
A selfish, souring discontent
Pride-born, the devil's sin.
"Then men were men of might and right,
Sheer might, at least, and weighty swords;
Then men in open blood and fire
Bore witness to their words,--
"Crest-rearing kings with whistling spears;
But if these shivered in the shock
They wrenched up hundred-rooted trees,
Or hurled the effacing rock.
"Then hand to hand, then foot to foot,
Stern to the death-grip grappling then,
Who ever thought of gunpowder
Amongst these men of men?
"They knew whose hand struck home the death,
They knew who broke but would not bend,
Could venerate an equal foe
And scorn a laggard friend.
"Calm in the utmost stress of doom,
Devout toward adverse powers above,
They hated with intenser hate
And loved with fuller love.
"Then heavenly beauty could allay
As heavenly beauty stirred the strife:
By them a slave was worshipped more
Than is by us a wife. "
She laughed again, my sister laughed;
Made answer o'er the laboured cloth:
"I rather would be one of us
Than wife, or slave, or both. "
"Oh better then be slave or wife
Than fritter now blank life away:
Then night had holiness of night,
And day was sacred day.
"The princess laboured at her loom,
Mistress and handmaiden alike;
Beneath their needles grew the field
With warriors armed to strike.
"Or, look again, dim Dian's face
Gleamed perfect through the attendant night:
Were such not better than those holes
Amid that waste of white?
"A shame it is, our aimless life;
I rather from my heart would feed
From silver dish in gilded stall
With wheat and wine the steed--
"The faithful steed that bore my lord
In safety through the hostile land,
The faithful steed that arched his neck
To fondle with my hand. "
Her needle erred; a moment's pause,
A moment's patience, all was well.
Then she: "But just suppose the horse,
Suppose the rider fell?
"Then captive in an alien house,
Hungering on exile's bitter bread,--
They happy, they who won the lot
Of sacrifice," she said.
Speaking she faltered, while her look
Showed forth her passion like a glass:
With hand suspended, kindling eye,
Flushed cheek, how fair she was!
"Ah well, be those the days of dross;
This, if you will, the age of gold:
Yet had those days a spark of warmth,
While these are somewhat cold--
"Are somewhat mean and cold and slow,
Are stunted from heroic growth:
We gain but little when we prove
The worthlessness of both.
"
"But life is in our hands," she said;
"In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?
"Too short a century of dreams,
One day of work sufficient length:
Why should not you, why should not I,
Attain heroic strength?
"Our life is given us as a blank,
Ourselves must make it blest or curst:
Who dooms me I shall only be
The second, not the first?
"Learn from old Homer, if you will,
Such wisdom as his books have said:
In one the acts of Ajax shine,
In one of Diomed.
"Honoured all heroes whose high deeds
Through life, through death, enlarge their span
Only Achilles in his rage
And sloth is less than man. "
"Achilles only less than man?
He less than man who, half a god,
Discomfited all Greece with rest,
Cowed Ilion with a nod?
"He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
Heaped up the sacrifice.
"Self-immolated to his friend,
Shrined in world's wonder, Homer's page,
Is this the man, the less than men
Of this degenerate age? "
"Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
Bleeds the swart lioness. "
But here she paused; our eyes had met,
And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: "I went too far," she said;
Spoke low: "Forgive me, dear.
"To me our days seem pleasant days,
Our home a haven of pure content;
Forgive me if I said too much,
So much more than I meant.
"Homer, though greater than his gods,
With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
To us who learn of Christ? "
The much-moved pathos of her voice,
Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
Which only made her speak.
For mild she was, of few soft words,
Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke,
And reverence what I said:
I elder sister by six years;
Not half so glad, or wise, or good:
Her words rebuked my secret self
And shamed me where I stood.
She never guessed her words reproved
A silent envy nursed within,
A selfish, souring discontent
Pride-born, the devil's sin.
