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                  [Illustration: _The Cameo Series_]




                             A Minor Poet

                 [Illustration: portrait of Amy Levy]




                             A Minor Poet
                            And other Verse

                                  by
                               AMY LEVY

                             CAMEO SERIES

                    T.FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQ.
                         LONDON E.C. MDCCCXCI.

                    [Illustration: text decoration]

                           _Second Edition_

This volume is a reprint of that issued in 1884, with the addition of a
sonnet and a translation, from a volume published in Cambridge in 1881,
                         and now out of print.

                    [Illustration: text decoration]




_Contents._

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                                                                    PAGE

_To a Dead Poet_                                                      11

A MINOR POET                                                          13

XANTIPPE                                                              23

MEDEA                                                                 35

SINFONIA EROICA                                                       58

TO SYLVIA                                                             60

A GREEK GIRL                                                          62

MAGDALEN                                                              65

CHRISTOPHER FOUND                                                     69

A DIRGE                                                               74

THE SICK MAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE                                      76

TO DEATH                                                              77

A JUNE-TIDE ECHO                                                      78

TO LALLIE                                                             80

IN A MINOR KEY                                                        83

A FAREWELL                                                            86

A CROSS-ROAD EPITAPH                                                  87

EPITAPH                                                               88

SONNET                                                                89

TRANSLATED FROM GEIBEL                                                90

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_To a Dead Poet._


    _I knew not if to laugh or weep;_
      _They sat and talked of you--_
    _“’Twas here he sat; ’twas this he said!_
      _’Twas that he used to do._

    _“Here is the book wherein he read,_
      _The room, wherein he dwelt;_
    _And he” (they said) “was such a man,_
      _Such things he thought and felt.”_

    _I sat and sat, I did not stir;_
      _They talked and talked away._
    _I was as mute as any stone,_
      _I had no word to say._

    _They talked and talked; like to a stone_
      _My heart grew in my breast--_
    _I, who had never seen your face_
      _Perhaps I knew you best._

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_A Minor Poet._

          “_What should such fellows as I do,_
    _Crawling between earth and heaven?_”

[Illustration: text decoration]

    Here is the phial; here I turn the key
    Sharp in the lock. Click!--there’s no doubt it turned.
    This is the third time; there is luck in threes--
    Queen Luck, that rules the world, befriend me now
    And freely I’ll forgive you many wrongs!
    Just as the draught began to work, first time,
    Tom Leigh, my friend (as friends go in the world),
    Burst in, and drew the phial from my hand,
    (Ah, Tom! ah, Tom! that was a sorry turn!)
    And lectured me a lecture, all compact
    Of neatest, newest phrases, freshly culled
    From works of newest culture: “common good;”
    “The world’s great harmonies;” “must be content
    With knowing God works all things for the best,
    And Nature never stumbles.” Then again,
    “The common good,” and still, “the common, good;”
    And what a small thing was our joy or grief
    When weigh’d with that of thousands. Gentle Tom,
    But you might wag your philosophic tongue
    From morn till eve, and still the thing’s the same:
    I am myself, as each man is himself--
    Feels his own pain, joys his own joy, and loves
    With his own love, no other’s. Friend, the world
    Is but one man; one man is but the world.
    And I am I, and you are Tom, that bleeds
    When needles prick your flesh (mark, yours, not mine).
    I must confess it; I can feel the pulse
    A-beating at my heart, yet never knew
    The throb of cosmic pulses. I lament
    The death of youth’s ideal in my heart;
    And, to be honest, never yet rejoiced
    In the world’s progress--scarce, indeed, discerned;
    (For still it seems that God’s a Sisyphus
    With the world for stone).
                  You shake your head. I’m base,
    Ignoble? Who is noble--you or I?
    _I was not once thus?_ Ah, my friend, we are
    As the Fates make us.
                          This time is the third;
    The second time the flask fell from my hand,
    Its drowsy juices spilt upon the board;
    And there my face fell flat, and all the life
    Crept from my limbs, and hand and foot were bound
    With mighty chains, subtle, intangible;
    While still the mind held to its wonted use,
    Or rather grew intense and keen with dread,
    An awful dread--I thought I was in Hell.
    In Hell, in Hell! Was ever Hell conceived
    By mortal brain, by brain Divine devised,
    Darker, more fraught with torment, than the world
    For such as I? A creature maimed and marr’d
    From very birth. A blot, a blur, a note
    All out of tune in this world’s instrument.
    A base thing, yet not knowing to fulfil
    Base functions. A high thing, yet all unmeet
    For work that’s high. A dweller on the earth,
    Yet not content to dig with other men
    Because of certain sudden sights and sounds
    (Bars of broke music; furtive, fleeting glimpse
    Of angel faces ’thwart the grating seen)
    Perceived in Heaven. Yet when I approach
    To catch the sound’s completeness, to absorb
    The faces’ full perfection, Heaven’s gate,
    Which then had stood ajar, sudden falls to,
    And I, a-shiver in the dark and cold,
    Scarce hear afar the mocking tones of men:
    “He would not dig, forsooth; but he must strive
    For higher fruits than what our tillage yields;
    Behold what comes, my brothers, of vain pride!”
    Why play with figures? trifle prettily
    With this my grief which very simply ’s said,
    “There is no place for me in all the world”?
    The world’s a rock, and I will beat no more
    A breast of flesh and blood against a rock....
    A stride across the planks for old time’s sake.
    Ah, bare, small room that I have sorrowed in;
    Ay, and on sunny days, haply, rejoiced;
    We know some things together, you and I!
    Hold there, you rangèd row of books! In vain
    You beckon from your shelf. You’ve stood my friends
    Where all things else were foes; yet now I’ll turn
    My back upon you, even as the world
    Turns it on me. And yet--farewell, farewell!
    You, lofty Shakespere, with the tattered leaves
    And fathomless great heart, your binding’s bruised
    Yet did I love you less? Goethe, farewell;
    Farewell, triumphant smile and tragic eyes,
    And pitiless world-wisdom!
                                  For all men
    These two. And ’tis farewell with you, my friends,
    More dear because more near: Theokritus;
    Heine that stings and smiles; Prometheus’ bard;
    (I’ve grown too coarse for Shelley latterly:)
    And one wild singer of to-day, whose song
    Is all aflame with passionate bard’s blood
    Lash’d into foam by pain and the world’s wrong.
    At least, he has a voice to cry his pain;
    For him, no silent writhing in the dark,
    No muttering of mute lips, no straining out
    Of a weak throat a-choke with pent-up sound,
    A-throb with pent-up passion....
                                Ah, my sun!
    That’s you, then, at the window, looking in
    To beam farewell on one who’s loved you long
    And very truly. Up, you creaking thing,
    You squinting, cobwebbed casement!
                                        So, at last,
    I can drink in the sunlight. How it falls
    Across that endless sea of London roofs,
    Weaving such golden wonders on the grey,
    That almost, for the moment, we forget
    The world of woe beneath them.
                                  Underneath,
    For all the sunset glory, Pain is king.
    Yet, the sun’s there, and very sweet withal;
    And I’ll not grumble that it’s only sun,
    But open wide my lips--thus--drink it in;
    Turn up my face to the sweet evening sky
    (What royal wealth of scarlet on the blue
    So tender toned, you’d almost think it green)
    And stretch my hands out--so--to grasp it tight.
    Ha, ha! ’tis sweet awhile to cheat the Fates,
    And be as happy as another man.
    The sun works in my veins like wine, like wine!
    ’Tis a fair world: if dark, indeed, with woe,
    Yet having hope and hint of such a joy,
    That a man, winning, well might turn aside,
    Careless of Heaven....
                              O enough; I turn
    From the sun’s light, or haply I shall hope.
    I have hoped enough; I would not hope again:
    ’Tis hope that is most cruel.
                                  Tom, my friend,
    You very sorry philosophic fool;
    ’Tis you, I think, that bid me be resign’d,
    Trust, and be thankful.
                            Out on you! Resign’d?
    I’m not resign’d, not patient, not school’d in
    To take my starveling’s portion and pretend
    I’m grateful for it. I want all, all, all;
    I’ve appetite for all. I want the best:
    Love, beauty, sunlight, nameless joy of life.
    There’s too much patience in the world, I think.
    We have grown base with crooking of the knee.
    Mankind--say--God has bidden to a feast;
    The board is spread, and groans with cates and drinks;
    In troop the guests; each man with appetite
    Keen-whetted with expectance.
                                    In they troop,
    Struggle for seats, jostle and push and seize.
    What’s this? what’s this? There are not seats for all!
    Some men must stand without the gates; and some
    Must linger by the table, ill-supplied
    With broken meats. One man gets meat for two,
    The while another hungers. If I stand
    Without the portals, seeing others eat
    Where I had thought to satiate the pangs
    Of mine own hunger; shall I then come forth
    When all is done, and drink my Lord’s good health
    In my Lord’s water? Shall I not rather turn
    And curse him, curse him for a niggard host?
    O, I have hungered, hungered, through the years,
    Till appetite grows craving, then disease;
    I am starved, wither’d, shrivelled.
                                      Peace, O peace!
    This rage is idle; what avails to curse
    The nameless forces, the vast silences
    That work in all things.
                            This time is the third,
    I wrought before in heat, stung mad with pain,
    Blind, scarcely understanding; now I know
    What thing I do.
                      There was a woman once;
    Deep eyes she had, white hands, a subtle smile,
    Soft speaking tones: she did not break my heart,
    Yet haply had her heart been otherwise
    Mine had not now been broken. Yet, who knows?
    My life was jarring discord from the first:
    Tho’ here and there brief hints of melody,
    Of melody unutterable, clove the air.
    From this bleak world, into the heart of night,
    The dim, deep bosom of the universe,
    I cast myself. I only crave for rest;
    Too heavy is the load. I fling it down.


EPILOGUE.

    We knocked and knocked; at last, burst in the door,
    And found him as you know--the outstretched arms
    Propping the hidden face. The sun had set,
    And all the place was dim with lurking shade.
    There was no written word to say farewell,
    Or make more clear the deed.
                            I search’d and search’d;
    The room held little: just a row of books
    Much scrawl’d and noted; sketches on the wall,
    Done rough in charcoal; the old instrument
    (A violin, no Stradivarius)
    He played so ill on; in the table drawer
    Large schemes of undone work. Poems half-writ;
    Wild drafts of symphonies; big plans of fugues;
    Some scraps of writing in a woman’s hand:
    No more--the scattered pages of a tale,
    A sorry tale that no man cared to read.
    Alas, my friend, I lov’d him well, tho’ he
    Held me a cold and stagnant-blooded fool,
    Because I am content to watch, and wait
    With a calm mind the issue of all things.
    Certain it is my blood’s no turbid stream;
    Yet, for all that, haply I understood
    More than he ever deem’d; nor held so light
    The poet in him. Nay, I sometimes doubt
    If they have not, indeed, the better part--
    These poets, who get drunk with sun, and weep
    Because the night or a woman’s face is fair.
    Meantime there is much talk about my friend.
    The women say, of course, he died for love;
    The men, for lack of gold, or cavilling
    Of carping critics. I, Tom Leigh, his friend
    I have no word at all to say of this.
    Nay, I had deem’d him more philosopher;
    For did he think by this one paltry deed
    To cut the knot of circumstance, and snap
    The chain which binds all being?




_Xantippe._

(A FRAGMENT.)

_“Xantippe” has appeared in the_ University Magazine, _and in a
collection of Verse published at Cambridge._

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    What, have I waked again? I never thought
    To see the rosy dawn, or ev’n this grey,
    Dull, solemn stillness, ere the dawn has come.
    The lamp burns low; low burns the lamp of life:
    The still morn stays expectant, and my soul,
    All weighted with a passive wonderment,
    Waiteth and watcheth, waiteth for the dawn.
    Come hither, maids; too soundly have ye slept
    That should have watched me; nay, I would not chide--
    Oft have I chidden, yet I would not chide
    In this last hour;--now all should be at peace.
    I have been dreaming in a troubled sleep
    Of weary days I thought not to recall;
    Of stormy days, whose storms are hushed long since;
    Of gladsome days, of sunny days; alas
    In dreaming, all their sunshine seem’d so sad,
    As though the current of the dark To-Be
    Had flow’d, prophetic, through the happy hours.
    And yet, full well, I know it was not thus;
    I mind me sweetly of the summer days,
    When, leaning from the lattice, I have caught
    The fair, far glimpses of a shining sea;
    And, nearer, of tall ships which thronged the bay,
    And stood out blackly from a tender sky
    All flecked with sulphur, azure, and bright gold;
    And in the still, clear air have heard the hum
    Of distant voices; and methinks there rose
    No darker fount to mar or stain the joy
    Which sprang ecstatic in my maiden breast
    Than just those vague desires, those hopes and fears,
    Those eager longings, strong, though undefined,
    Whose very sadness makes them seem so sweet.
    What cared I for the merry mockeries
    Of other maidens sitting at the loom?
    Or for sharp voices, bidding me return
    To maiden labour? Were we not apart--
    I and my high thoughts, and my golden dreams,
    My soul which yearned for knowledge, for a tongue
    That should proclaim the stately mysteries
    Of this fair world, and of the holy gods?
    Then followed days of sadness, as I grew
    To learn my woman-mind had gone astray,
    And I was sinning in those very thoughts--
    For maidens, mark, such are not woman’s thoughts--
    (And yet, ’tis strange, the gods who fashion us
    Have given us such promptings)....
                                      Fled the years,
    Till seventeen had found me tall and strong,
    And fairer, runs it, than Athenian maids
    Are wont to seem; I had not learnt it well--
    My lesson of dumb patience--and I stood
    At Life’s great threshold with a beating heart,
    And soul resolved to conquer and attain....
    Once, walking ’thwart the crowded market-place,
    With other maidens, bearing in the twigs
    White doves for Aphrodite’s sacrifice,
    I saw him, all ungainly and uncouth,
    Yet many gathered round to hear his words,
    Tall youths and stranger-maidens--Sokrates--
    I saw his face and marked it, half with awe,
    Half with a quick repulsion at the shape....
    The richest gem lies hidden furthest down,
    And is the dearer for the weary search;
    We grasp the shining shells which strew the shore,
    Yet swift we fling them from us; but the gem
    We keep for aye and cherish. So a soul,
    Found after weary searching in the flesh
    Which half repelled our senses, is more dear,
    For that same seeking, than the sunny mind
    Which lavish Nature marks with thousand hints
    Upon a brow of beauty. We are prone
    To overweigh such subtle hints, then deem,
    In after disappointment, we are fooled....
    And when, at length, my father told me all,
    That I should wed me with great Sokrates,
    I, foolish, wept to see at once cast down
    The maiden image of a future love,
    Where perfect body matched the perfect soul.
    But slowly, softly did I cease to weep;
    Slowly I ’gan to mark the magic flash
    Leap to the eyes, to watch the sudden smile
    Break round the mouth, and linger in the eyes;
    To listen for the voice’s lightest tone--
    Great voice, whose cunning modulations seemed
    Like to the notes of some sweet instrument.
    So did I reach and strain, until at last
    I caught the soul athwart the grosser flesh.
    Again of thee, sweet Hope, my spirit dreamed!
    I, guided by his wisdom and his love,
    Led by his words, and counselled by his care,
    Should lift the shrouding veil from things which be,
    And at the flowing fountain of his soul
    Refresh my thirsting spirit....
                                  And indeed,
    In those long days which followed that strange day
    When rites and song, and sacrifice and flow’rs,
    Proclaimed that we were wedded, did I learn,
    In sooth, a-many lessons; bitter ones
    Which sorrow taught me, and not love inspired,
    Which deeper knowledge of my kind impressed
    With dark insistence on reluctant brain;--
    But that great wisdom, deeper, which dispels
    Narrowed conclusions of a half-grown mind,
    And sees athwart the littleness of life
    Nature’s divineness and her harmony,
    Was never poor Xantippe’s....
                                I would pause
    And would recall no more, no more of life,
    Than just the incomplete, imperfect dream
    Of early summers, with their light and shade,
    Their blossom-hopes, whose fruit was never ripe;
    But something strong within me, some sad chord
    Which loudly echoes to the later life,
    Me to unfold the after-misery
    Urges, with plaintive wailing in my heart.
    Yet, maidens, mark; I would not that ye thought
    I blame my lord departed, for he meant
    No evil, so I take it, to his wife.
    ’Twas only that the high philosopher,
    Pregnant with noble theories and great thoughts,
    Deigned not to stoop to touch so slight a thing
    As the fine fabric of a woman’s brain--
    So subtle as a passionate woman’s soul.
    I think, if he had stooped a little, and cared,
    I might have risen nearer to his height,
    And not lain shattered, neither fit for use
    As goodly household vessel, nor for that
    Far finer thing which I had hoped to be....
    Death, holding high his retrospective lamp,
    Shows me those first, far years of wedded life,
    Ere I had learnt to grasp the barren shape
    Of what the Fates had destined for my life
    Then, as all youthful spirits are, was I
    Wholly incredulous that Nature meant
    So little, who had promised me so much.
    At first I fought my fate with gentle words,
    With high endeavours after greater things;
    Striving to win the soul of Sokrates,
    Like some slight bird, who sings her burning love
    To human master, till at length she finds
    Her tender language wholly misconceived,
    And that same hand whose kind caress she sought,
    With fingers flippant flings the careless corn....
    I do remember how, one summer’s eve,
    He, seated in an arbour’s leafy shade,
    Had bade me bring fresh wine-skins....
                                          As I stood
    Ling’ring upon the threshold, half concealed
    By tender foliage, and my spirit light
    With draughts of sunny weather, did I mark
    An instant the gay group before mine eyes.
    Deepest in shade, and facing where I stood,
    Sat Plato, with his calm face and low brows
    Which met above the narrow Grecian eyes,
    The pale, thin lips just parted to the smile,
    Which dimpled that smooth olive of his cheek.
    His head a little bent, sat Sokrates,
    With one swart finger raised admonishing,
    And on the air were borne his changing tones.
    Low lounging at his feet, one fair arm thrown
    Around his knee (the other, high in air
    Brandish’d a brazen amphor, which yet rained
    Bright drops of ruby on the golden locks
    And temples with their fillets of the vine),
    Lay Alkibiades the beautiful.
    And thus, with solemn tone, spake Sokrates:
    “This fair Aspasia, which our Perikles
    Hath brought from realms afar, and set on high
    In our Athenian city, hath a mind,
    I doubt not, of a strength beyond her race;
    And makes employ of it, beyond the way
    Of women nobly gifted: woman’s frail--
    Her body rarely stands the test of soul;
    She grows intoxicate with knowledge; throws
    The laws of custom, order,’neath her feet,
    Feasting at life’s great banquet with wide throat.”
    Then sudden, stepping from my leafy screen,
    Holding the swelling wine-skin o’er my head,
    With breast that heaved, and eyes and cheeks aflame,
    Lit by a fury and a thought, I spake:
    “By all great powers around us! can it be
    That we poor women are empirical?
    That gods who fashioned us did strive to make
    Beings too fine, too subtly delicate,
    With sense that thrilled response to ev’ry touch
    Of nature’s, and their task is not complete?
    That they have sent their half-completed work
    To bleed and quiver here upon the earth?
    To bleed and quiver, and to weep and weep,
    To beat its soul against the marble walls
    Of men’s cold hearts, and then at last to sin!”
    I ceased, the first hot passion stayed and stemmed
    And frighted by the silence: I could see,
    Framed by the arbour foliage, which the sun
    In setting softly gilded with rich gold,
    Those upturned faces, and those placid limbs;
    Saw Plato’s narrow eyes and niggard mouth,
    Which half did smile and half did criticise,
    One hand held up, the shapely fingers framed
    To gesture of entreaty--“Hush, I pray,
    Do not disturb her; let us hear the rest;
    Follow her mood, for here’s another phase
    Of your black-browed Xantippe....”
                                      Then I saw
    Young Alkibiades, with laughing lips
    And half-shut eyes, contemptuous shrugging up
    Soft, snowy shoulders, till he brought the gold
    Of flowing ringlets round about his breasts.
    But Sokrates, all slow and solemnly,
    Raised, calm, his face to mine, and sudden spake:
    “I thank thee for the wisdom which thy lips
    Have thus let fall among us: prythee tell
    From what high source, from what philosophies
    Didst cull the sapient notion of thy words?”
    Then stood I straight and silent for a breath,
    Dumb, crushed with all that weight of cold contempt;
    But swiftly in my bosom there uprose
    A sudden flame, a merciful fury sent
    To save me; with both angry hands I flung
    The skin upon the marble, where it lay
    Spouting red rills and fountains on the white;
    Then, all unheeding faces, voices, eyes,
    I fled across the threshold, hair unbound--
    White garment stained to redness--beating heart
    Flooded with all the flowing tide of hopes
    Which once had gushed out golden, now sent back
    Swift to their sources, never more to rise....
    I think I could have borne the weary life,
    The narrow life within the narrow walls,
    If he had loved me; but he kept his love
    For this Athenian city and her sons;
    And, haply, for some stranger-woman, bold
    With freedom, thought, and glib philosophy....
    Ah me! the long, long weeping through the nights,
    The weary watching for the pale-eyed dawn
    Which only brought fresh grieving: then I grew
    Fiercer, and cursed from out my inmost heart
    The Fates which marked me an Athenian maid.
    Then faded that vain fury; hope died out;
    A huge despair was stealing on my soul,
    A sort of fierce acceptance of my fate,--
    He wished a household vessel--well ’twas good,
    For he should have it! He should have no more
    The yearning treasure of a woman’s love,
    But just the baser treasure which he sought.
    I called my maidens, ordered out the loom,
    And spun unceasing from the morn till eve;
    Watching all keenly over warp and woof,
    Weighing the white wool with a jealous hand.
    I spun until, methinks, I spun away
    The soul from out my body, the high thoughts
    From out my spirit; till at last I grew
    As ye have known me,--eye exact to mark
    The texture of the spinning; ear all keen
    For aimless talking when the moon is up,
    And ye should be a-sleeping; tongue to cut
    With quick incision, ’thwart the merry words
    Of idle maidens....
                        Only yesterday
    My hands did cease from spinning; I have wrought
    My dreary duties, patient till the last.
    The gods reward me! Nay, I will not tell
    The after years of sorrow; wretched strife
    With grimmest foes--sad Want and Poverty;--
    Nor yet the time of horror, when they bore
    My husband from the threshold; nay, nor when
    The subtle weed had wrought its deadly work.
    Alas! alas! I was not there to soothe
    The last great moment; never any thought
    Of her that loved him--save at least the charge,
    All earthly, that her body should not starve....
    You weep, you weep; I would not that ye wept;
    Such tears are idle; with the young, such grief
    Soon grows to gratulation, as, “her love
    Was withered by misfortune; mine shall grow
    All nurtured by the loving,” or, “her life
    Was wrecked and shattered--mine shall smoothly sail.”
    Enough, enough. In vain, in vain, in vain!
    The gods forgive me! Sorely have I sinned
    In all my life. A fairer fate befall
    You all that stand there....
                          Ha! the dawn has come;
    I see a rosy glimmer--nay! it grows dark;
    Why stand ye so in silence? throw it wide,
    The casement, quick; why tarry?--give me air--
    O fling it wide, I say, and give me light!




_Medea._

(A FRAGMENT IN DRAMA FORM, AFTER EURIPIDES.)

    πάντων δ’ ὅσ’ ἔστ’ ἔμψυχα καὶ
     γνώμην ἔχει γυναῖκές ἐσμεν
     ἀθλιώτατον φυτόν:

[Illustration: text decoration]

PERSONS.

    MEDEA.}
    ÆGEUS.} Citizens of Corinth.
    JASON.}
    NIKIAS.}


_Scene_: _Before_ MEDEA’S _House_.

[_Enter_ MEDEA.]

MEDEA.

    To-day, to-day, I know not why it is,
    I do bethink me of my Colchian home.
    To-day, that I am lone and weary and sad,
    I fain would call back days of pride and hope;
    Of pride in strength, when strength was all unprov’d,
    Of hope too high, too sweet, to be confined
    In limits of conception.
                              I am sad
    Here in this gracious city, whose white walls
    Gleam snow-like in the sunlight; whose fair shrines
    Are filled with wondrous images of gods;
    Upon whose harbour’s bosom ride tall ships,
    Black-masted, fraught with fragrant merchandise;
    Whose straight-limbed people, in fair stuffs arrayed,
    Do throng from morn till eve the sunny streets.
    For what avail fair shrines and images?
    What, cunning workmanship and purple robes?
    Light of sweet sunlight, play and spray of waves?
    When all around the air is charged and chill,
    And all the place is drear and dark with hate?
    Alas, alas, this people loves me not!
    This strong, fair people, marble-cold and smooth
    As modelled marble. I, an alien here,
    That well can speak the language of their lips,
    The language of their souls may never learn.
    And in their hands, I, that did know myself
    Ere now, a creature in whose veins ran blood
    Redder, more rapid, than flows round most hearts,
    Do seem a creature reft of life and soul.
    If they would only teach the subtle trick
    By which their hearts are melted into love,
    I’d strive to learn it. I am very meek.
    They think me proud, but I am very meek,
    Ready to do their bidding. Hear me, friends!
    Friends, I am very hungry, give me love!
    ’Tis all I ask! is it so hard to give?
    You stand and front me with your hostile eyes;
    You only give me hatred?
                            Yet I know
    Ye are not all unloving. Oft I see
    The men and women walking in the ways,
    Hand within hand, and tender-bated breath,
    On summer evenings when the sky is fair.
    O men and women, are ye then so hard?
    Will ye not give a little of your love
    To me that am so hungry?

     [_Enter_ ÆGEUS _and_ NIKIAS, _on the opposite side_. MEDEA _steps
     back on the threshold and pauses_.]

                            Ha, that word!
    ’Tis Jason’s name they bandy to and fro.
    I know not why, whene’er his name is spoke,
    Once name of joy and ever name of love,
    I wax white and do tremble; sudden seized
    With shadowy apprehension. May’t forbode
    No evil unto him I hold so dear;
    And ever dearer with the waxing years:--
    For this indeed is woman’s chiefest curse,
    That still her constant heart clings to its love
    Through all time