Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SCYTHIAN GUEST, by JOHN RUSKIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SCYTHIAN GUEST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The feast is full, the guests are gay
Last Line: And wait and watch for thee.
Subject(s): Feasts; Funerals; Scythians; Burials


I.

THE feast is full, the guests are gay,
Though at his lance-illumined door
Still must the anxious master stay,
For, by the echoing river shore,
He hears the hot and hurrying beat
Of harnessed horse's flying feet,
And waits to watch and yearns to greet
The coming of the brave.
Behold—like showers of silver sleet,
His lines of lances wind and wave:
He comes as he was wont to ride
By Hypanis' war troubled tide,
When, like the west wind's sternest stoop,
Was the strength of his tempestuous troop,
And when their dark steed's shadows swift
Had crossed the current's foamless drift,
The light of the river grew dazzled and dim,
With the flash of the hair and the flight of the limb.

II.

He comes—urged on by shout and lash,
His favorite courser flies;
There's frenzy in its drooping dash,
And sorrow in its eyes.
Close on its hoofs the chariots crash,
Their shook reins ring—their axles flash—
The charioteers are wild and rash;
Panting and cloven the swift air feels
The red breath of the whirling wheels,
Hissing with heat, and drunk with speed
Of wild delight, that seems to feed
Upon the fire of its own flying;
Yet he for whom they race is lying
Motionless in his chariot, and still
Like one of weak desire or fettered will,
Is it the sun-lulled sleep of weariness
That weighs upon him? Lo! there is no stress
Of slumber on his eyelids—some slow trance,
Seems dwelling on the darkness of his glance;
Its depth is quiet, and its keenness cold
As an eagle's quenched with lightning, the close fold
Of his strong arms is listless, like the twine
Of withered weeds along the waving line
Of flowing streams; and o'er his face a strange
Deep shadow is cast, which doth not move nor change.

III.

At the known gate the coursers check,
With panting breast and lowly neck;
From kingly group, from menial crowd,
The cry of welcome rings aloud:
It was not wont to be so weak,—
Half a shout and half a shriek,
Mixed with the low yet penetrating quiver
Of constrained voices, such as creep
Into cold words, when, dim and deep,
Beneath the wild heart's death-like shiver
Mocks at the message that the lips deliver.

IV.

Doth he not hear? Will he not wake?
That shout of welcome did not break,
Even for an instant on the trace
Of the dark shadow o'er his face.
Behold, his slaves in silence lift
That frame so strong, those limbs so swift,
Like a sick child's; though half erect
He rose when first his chariot checked,
He fell—as leaves fall on the spot
Where summer sun shall waken not
The mingling of their veined sensation,
With the black earth's wormy desolation.
With stealthy tread, like those that dread
To break the peace of sorrow's slumber,
They move, whose martial force he led,
Whose arms his passive limbs encumber:
Through passage and port, through corridor and court,
They hold their dark, slow-trodden track;
Beneath that crouching figure's scowl
The household dogs hang wildly back,
With wrinkled lip and hollow howl;
And on the mien of those they meet,
Their presence passes like the shadow
Of the gray storm-cloud's swirling sheet,
Along some soft sun-lighted meadow;
For those who smiled before they met,
Have turned away to smile no more;
Even as they pass, their lips forget
The words they wove—the hues they wore;
Even as they look, the eyes grow wet
That glanced most bright before!

V.

The feast is ranged, the guests are met;
High on the central throne,
That dark and voiceless Lord is set,
And left alone;
And the revel is loud among the crowd,
As the laugh on surges free,
Of their merry and multitudinous lips,
When the fiery foamlight skims and skips,
Along the sounding sea.
The wine is red and wildly shed,
The wreathed jest is gaily sped.
And the rush of their merriment rises aloof
Into the shade of the ringing roof;
And yet their cheeks look faint and dead,
And their lips look pale and dry;
In every heart there dwells a dread,
And a trouble in every eye.

VI.

For sternly charmed, or strangely chill,
That lonely Lord sits stiff and still,
Far in the chamber gathered back
Where the lamps are few, and the shadows black;
So that the strained eye scarce can guess
At the fearful form of his quietness,
And shrinks from what it cannot trace,
Yet feels, is worse than even the error
That veils, within that ghastly space,
The shrouded form and shadowed face
Of indistinct, unmoving terror.
And the life and light of the atmosphere
Are choked with mingled mist and fear,
Something half substance and half thought,—
A feeling, visibly inwrought
Into the texture of the air;
And though the fanned lamps flash and flare
Among the other guests—by Him,
They have grown narrow, and blue and dim,
And steady in their fire, as if
Some frigid horror made them stiff.
Nor eye hath marked, nor ear hath heard
That form, if once it breathed or stirred;
Though the dark revel's forced fits
Penetrate where it sleeps and sits;
But this, their fevered glances mark
Ever, for ever, calm and dark;
With lifeless hue, and changeless trace,
That shadow dwells upon his face.

VII.

It is not pain, nor passion, but a deep
Incorporated darkness, like the sleep
Of the lead-coloured anger of the ocean,
When the heaven is fed with death, and its gray motion
Over the waves, invisible—it seems
Entangled with the flesh, till the faint gleams
Of natural flush have withered like the light
Of the keen morning, quenched with the close flight
Of thunder; and beneath that deadly veil,
The coldness of the under-skin is pale
And ghastly, and transparent as beneath
Some midnight vapour's intertwined wreath
Glares the green moonlight; and a veined fire
Seems throbbing through it, like a dim desire
Felt through inanimation, of charmed life
Struggling with strong sick pants of beaming strife,
That wither and yet warm not:—through its veins,
The quenched blood beats not, burns not, but dark stains
Of congealed blackness, on the cheek and brow,
Lie indistinct amidst their frightful shade;
The breathless lips, like two thin flakes of snow,
Gleam with wan lines, by some past agony made
To set into the semblance of a smile,
Such as strong-hearted men wear wildly, while
Their souls are twined with torture; calm and fixed,
And yet distorted, as it could not be,
Had not the chill with which it froze been mixed
With twitching cords of some strong agony.
And the white teeth gleam through the ghastly chasm
Of that strange smile; close clenched, as the last spasm
Of the wrung nerves has knit them; could they move,
They would gnash themselves to pieces; from above
The veiling shadow of the forehead falls,
Yet with an under-glare the fixed balls
Of the dark eyes gleam steadily, though not
With any inward light, or under-thought,
But casting back from their forgetful trance,
To each who looks, the flash of his own glance;
So that each feels, of all assembled there,
Fixed on himself, that strange and meaning glare
Of eyes most motionless; the long dark hair
Hangs tangled o'er the faded feature's gloom,
Like withered weeds above a mouldering tomb,
Matted in black decay; the cold night air
Hath stirred them once or twice, even as despair
Plays with the heart's worn chords, that last retain
Their sense of sorrow, and their pulse of pain.

VIII.

Yet strike, oh! strike the chorded shell,
And let the notes be low and skilled;
Perchance the words he loved so well
May thrill as once they thrilled.
That deadened ear may still be true
To the soft voice that once it knew;
And the throbs that beat below the heart,
And the joys that burn above,
Shall bid the light of laughter dart
Along the lips of love.
Alas! those tones are all untold
On ear and heart so closed and cold;
The slumber shall be sound,—the night,—how long!
That will not own the power of smile or song;
Those lips of love may burn, his eyes are dim;
That voice of joy may wake, but not for him.

IX.

The rushing wine, the rose's flush,
Have crowned the goblet's glancing brim;
But who shall call the blossom's blush,
Or bid the goblet flow for him?
For how shall thirst or hunger's heat
Attend the sunless track,
Towards the cool and calm retreat,
From which his courser's flashing feet
Can never bear him back?
There, by the cold corpse-guarded hill,
The shadows fall both broad and still;
There shall they fall at night,—at noon,
Nor own the day star's warning,
Grey shades, that move not with the moon,
And perish not with morning.

X.

Farewell, farewell, thou presence pale!
The bed is stretched where thou shouldst be;
The dawn may lift its crimson veil,
It doth not breathe, nor burn for thee.
The mien of might, the glance of light,
That checked or cheered the war's career,
Are dreadless in the fiery fight,
Are dreadful only here.
Exulting hatred, red and rife,
May smile to mark thine altered brow;
There are but those who loved in life,
Who fear thee, now.
Farewell, farewell, thou Presence pale!
The couch is near where thou shouldst be;
Thy troops of Death have donned their mail,
And wait and watch for thee.





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