Ah me, ah me! on this high mountain peak,
Which far above the seething Lydian plains
Takes the first dawn-shaft, and the sunset keeps
When all the fields grow dark--I, Niobe,
A mother's heart, hid in a form of stone,
Stand all day in the vengeful sun-god's eye,
Stand all night in the cold gaze of the moon,
Who both long ages since conspiring, slew
My children,--I a childless mother now
Who was most blest, a living woman still,
Bereft of all, and yet who cannot die.
Ah day, ill-fated day, which wrecked my life!
I was the happy mother of strong sons,
Brave, beautiful, all in their bloom of age:
From him my first-born, now a bearded man,
Through the fair promise of imperfect youth,
To the slim stripling who had scarcely left
The women's chambers, on whose lip scant shade
Of budding manhood showed, I loved them all;
All with their father's eyes, and that strange charm
Of rhythmic grace, and musical utterance
As when, in far-off Thebes, the enchanted wall
Rose perfect, to the music of his lyre.
Ah me, the fatal day! For at high noon
I sate within my Theban palace fair--
Deep summer-time it was--and marked the crowd
From the thronged city street, to the smooth plain,
Stream joyously: the brave youths, full of life,
Stripped for the mimic fray, the leap, the race,
The wrestling; and the princes, my strong sons,
The fair limbs I had borne beneath my zone
Grown to full stature, such as maidens love,--
The sinewy arms, the broad chests, and strong loins
Of manhood; the imperfect flower-like forms,
Eager with youth's first fires; my youngest born,
My darling, doffing his ephebic robe
Which late he donned with pride, a child in heart,
In budding limbs a youth;--I see them go
Their fair young bodies glistening in the sun,
Which kissed the shining olive. As they went,
The joyous concourse winding towards the plain,
My happy eyes o'erflowed, and as I turned
And saw my daughters round me, fair grown lives
And virgin, sitting spinning the white flax,
Each with her distaff, beautiful and fit
To wed with any stately king of men
And reign a queen in Hellas, my glad heart
Broke forth in pride, and as I looked I thought,
"Oh happy, happy mother of such sons!
Oh happy, happy mother of such girls!
For whom full soon the joyous nuptial rites
Shall bring the expectant bridegroom and the bride,
And soon once more the little childish hands
Which shall renew my early wedded years,
When the king loved me first. Thrice blest indeed.
There is no queen in Hellas such as I,
Dowered with such fair-grown offspring; not a queen
Nor mother o'er all earth's plain, around which flows
The wide salt stream of the surrounding sea,
As blest as I am. Nay, in Olympus' self
What offspring were they to all-ruling Zeus
That Leto bore? Phoebus and Artemis,
A goodly pair indeed, but two alone.
Poor mother, that to such a lord as Zeus
Bare only those, no fairer than my own.
Nay, I am happier than a goddess' self;
I would not give this goodly train of mine
For that scant birth. I ask no boon of Zeus,
Nor of the Olympian Gods; for I am glad
No fruitful mother in a peasant's hut,
Scorning the childless great, thinks scorn of me,
Being such as I. Nay, let Queen Leto's self
Know, that a mortal queen has chanced to bear
As fair as she, and more."
Even as I spoke,
While the unholy pride flashed through my soul,
There pierced through the closed lattice one keen shaft
Of blinding sun, which on the opposite wall
Traced some mysterious sign, and on my mind
Such vague remorse and consciousness of ill,
That straightway all my pride was sunk and lost
In a great dread, nor could I longer bear
To look upon the fairness of my girls,
Who, seeing the vague trouble in my eyes,
Grew pale, and shuddered for no cause, and gazed
Chilled 'midst the blaze of sunlight.
Then I sought
To laugh my fears away, as one who feels
Some great transgression weigh on him, some load
Which will not be removed, but bears him down,
Though none else knows it, pressing on his heart.
But when the half unuttered thought grew dim
And my fear with it, suddenly a cry
Rose from the city street, and then the sound
Of measured hurrying feet, and looking forth
To where the youth had passed so late, in joy,
Came two who carried tenderly, with tears,
A boy's slight form. I had no need to look,
For all the mother rising in me knew
That 'twas my youngest born they bore; I knew
What fate befell him--'twas the vengeful sun,
And I alone was guilty, I, his mother,
Who being filled with impious pride, had brought
Death to my innocent child. I hurried down
The marble stair and met them as they came,
And laid him down, and kissed his lips and called
His name, yet knew that he was dead; and all
His brothers stood regarding us with tears,
And would have soothed me with their loving words,
Me guilty, who were guiltless, oh, my sons!
Till as I looked up from the corpse,--a cry
Of agony,--and then another fell
Struggling for life upon the earth, and then
Another, and another, till the last
Of all my stalwart boys, my life, my pride,
Lay dead upon the field, and the fierce sun
Frenzied my brain, and all distraught with woe
I to the palace tottered, while they bore
Slowly the comely corpses of my sons.
That day I dare not think of where they lay,
White shrouded, in the darkened palace rooms,
Like sculptured statues on a marble hearse.
How calm they looked and happy, my dear sons!
There was no look of pain within their eyes,
The dear dead eyes which I their mother closed;
Me miserable! I saw the priests approach,
And ministers of death; I saw my girls
Flung weeping on the brothers whom they loved.
I saw it all as in a dream. I know not
How often the dead night woke into day,
How often the hot day-time turned to night.
I did not shudder even to see the Sun
Which slew my sons; but in the still, dead night,
When in that chill and lifeless place of death,
The cold, clear, cruel moonlight seemed to play
Upon the rangéd corpses, and to mock
My mother's heart, and throw on each a hue
Of swift corruption ere its time, I knew
Some secret terror lest the jealous gods
Might find some further dreadful vengeance still,
Taking what yet was left.
At set of sun
The sad procession to the place of graves
Went with the rites of royal sepulchre,
The high priest at its head, the nobles round
The fair white shrouded corpses, last of all
I went, the guilty one, my fair sweet girls
Clinging to me in tears; but I, I shed not
A single tear--grief dried the fount of tears,
I had shed all mine.
Only overmastering fear
Held me of what might come.
When they were laid,
Oh, wretched me, my dear, my well-loved sons!
Within the royal sepulchre, the sun
Had set, and in his stead the rising moon,
Behind some lofty mountain-peak concealed,
Filled all with ghastly twilight. As we knelt,
The people all withdrawn a little space,
I and my daughters in that place of death,
I lifted up my suppliant voice, and they
With sweet girl voices pure, and soaring hymn,
To the great Powers above.
But when at last
I heard my hollow voice pleading alone
And all the others silent, then I looked,
And on the tomb the cold malignant moon,
Bursting with pale chill beams of light, revealed
My fair girls kneeling mute and motionless,
Their dead eyes turned to the unpitying orb,
Their white lips which should offer prayer no more.
Such vengeance wreaked Phoebus and Artemis
Upon a too proud mother. But on me
Who only sinned no other punishment
They took, only the innocent lives I loved--
If any punishment, indeed, were more
Than this to one who had welcomed death. I think
My children happier far in death than I
Who live to muse on these things. When my girls
Were buried, I, my lonely palace gate
Leaving without a tear, sped hither in haste
To this high rock of Sipylus where erst
My father held his court; and here, long years,
Summer and winter, stay I, day and night
Gazing towards the far-off plain of Thebes,
Wherein I was so happy of old time,
Wherein I sinned and suffered. Turned to stone
They thought me, and 'tis true the mother's heart
Which knows such grief as I knew, turns to stone,
And all her life; and pitying Zeus, indeed,
Seeing my repentance, listened to my prayer
And left me seeming stone, but still the heart
Of the mother grows not hard, and year by year
When comes the summer with its cloudless skies,
And the high sun lights hill and plain by day,
And the moon, shining, silvers them by night,
My old grief, rising dew-like to my eyes,
Quickens my life with not unhappy tears,
And through my penitent and yearning heart
I feel once more the pulse of love and grief:
Love triumphing at last o'er Fate and Death,
Grief all divine and vindicating Love.