When this shall reach you I shall be no more;
For do not men in presence of some score
Too great for payment constantly prefer
Quick death to base insolvency, and spur
A trembling self across life’s brink. And yet
They owe but gold--perhaps a paltry debt
To some vile Jew; while I, alas, alas!
Owe all mankind a thing which did surpass
All other treasures; a grand peerless thing
Beyond all pricing and all wondering,
Which should be man’s, but which to save my own
Mean life I sacrificed. And days have grown
To be long months, and months to be long years;
And with each year the frightful debt appears
More insupportable. Oh, how immense
Has grown its weight! How horrible the sense
Of utter helplessness! But I have now
To tell the fatal tale of when and how
I lost it for the world, and not to speak
Of these sad days when conscience loves to wreak
Her retribution on me in such vast
And unremitting anguish.
I had passed
Six idle years since taking my degree,
When I fell in at Athens casually
With one called Richard Strongclyffe, who had been
My college friend, but whom I had not seen
Since then, and who meanwhile had made a name
Through study of Greek Art. We soon became
As intimate as of old; and as no claim
Of work or pleasure summoned me elsewhere,
He let me roam through Greece with him, and share
His own strong daily life--the sheer reverse
Of my accustomed life of waste, and worse
Than waste, the aimless life of which my soul
Was more than sick; it had become so foul.
He had an iron will; his hand was rough;
His heart was gentle. God had used strong stuff
In making him--weak stuff in making me.
And yet I was not worthless utterly.
Spite all my sins there were some better strings
In my weak heart; the wind of angels’ wings
Made them vibrate--but with faint echo, like
Æolian chords that gusts too fitful strike.
Mine is a double nature, which depends
Wholly on its surroundings, and which blends
With good or evil, with the low or high,
With the same drifting weak facility.
In Strongclyffe’s hands my nature’s worthier side
Alone found vent; pure tastes that had not died
Grew strong, while half-forgotten culture found
A sudden use, and from all things around
Increased its wealth. I think that he enjoyed
His power over me; his strong soul toyed
With my soft malleable mind, which had,
In spite of degradations many and sad,
Affinities of taste, and could admire
And understand him. Oh what strength and fire
Beneath his quiet ways! What scorn could burst
From his cold lip! what ceaseless ceaseless thirst
He had for knowledge! Even as my mind
Grew intimate with his, new worlds defined
Their shape on my horizon, like the grey
Faint, shadowy Greek Isles which far away
Loomed through the mists of dawn, but which became,
As we approached them in the sunrise flame,
Each minute more distinct.
We seldom stayed
Long in one self-same spot; but we obeyed
The needs of Strongclyffe’s studies, which entailed
Research in many places; and we sailed
From isle to isle, or rode from place to place,
Now in the less-known parts of Greece and Thrace,
And now in rocky Lydia. Oh, what fields
Where men dig gold, what far Golconda yields
Such wealth, such gems, as those impoverished plains
In which the spade turns up the scant remains
Of bygone genius; where the obedient earth,
Summoned to yield her buried dead, gives birth,
As if compelled by an enchanter’s rod,
To what is ever young--now to some god
In all his strength and beauty, now to some
Fantastic child of Pan, who seems fresh come
From dewy woods that long have ceased to be?
And Strongclyffe had the art to make one see
The hidden through the seen--to reconstruct
Past life and loveliness, and to conduct
The mind through perished worlds; and everywhere
He showed the same keen interest and a rare
Persistence of research. Yet what he did
Seemed somehow trifling; oft I thought it hid
Higher preoccupation--some great aim
Which time was ripening; so that when there came
One day a sudden change in him--when all
Was thrown aside, and when I heard him call
Upon my help, with triumph on his lips,
In a great enterprise which should eclipse
Even the greatest, I received his words
Not wholly unprepared.
How my heart’s chords
Vibrate as I recall them! ’Twas about
The third year’s close; and we were sitting out
Upon our terrace looking on the sea
At Thyna, after sundown. Purposely,
As I now fancy, Strongclyffe had led on
Our idle talk to what might yet be won
Back by mankind, of the great wreck we call
Antiquity; and then we talked of all
That splendid half of antique art which must
From the materials used have turned to dust
Almost as soon as did the artist’s hands.
Where be thy works, Apelles? where now stands,
Phidias, thy gold and ivory gems, renowned
Through the broad world? and where stands she who owned
As her fit seat the new-born Parthenon,
Thy gold and ivory Pallas? What would man
Not give to-day if only he could scan
In one short glimpse the splendour of that shape
Which Fancy’s restorations vainly ape,
If he for one short minute could behold
That ivory face, that drapery of gold
As Phidias modelled it?
“And yet,” I said,
“That Art was not so frail; for I have read
That that same effigy of Pallas, spared
From age to age, existed unimpaired
Till the Crusaders, under Baldwin, took
And sacked Constantinople.”
A strange look
Flashed out from Strongclyffe’s eyes. “There is no truth
In that old tale,” he answered; “and Time’s tooth
Still spared the statue when it many a year
Had gnawed the bones of Baldwin in his bier,
Ay, and of Baldwin’s sons.”
“How know you that?”
I asked.
He left the bench on which we sat,
And with a strange excitement he began
To pace the terrace. “I am not the man,”
He cried, “to make rash statements; yet I say
Deliberately, Percy, that to-day
That Pallas still exists. Oh, Earth has still
Surprises for mankind; and with God’s will
And patient work, the world shall see her yet!
Think not that I am mad: wait till I set
My proofs before your eyes. When you behold
The text in John Ionides, the old
Byzantine Chronicler, which had defied
All guesses to this day, and by its side
A certain passage in the life of Paul
Of Trebizond--and when you’ve counted all
The links of evidence which year by year
I have augmented both at home and here,
Until I now have found the very spot--
Then call me mad. ’Tis years since I have got
The certainty that long ere Baldwin’s sack
The Emperor, in fear of some attack
Upon the palace, had her safe conveyed
By vessel to a distance, and (by aid
Of trusty workmen) carefully concealed
In crypts beneath a temple. Nought revealed
The secret at the time; the Emperor died
Soon after; and, none caring to unhide
The statue, men forgot her. But where lay
The temple--or the ruins which to-day
No doubt replace it? Here I seemed to lose
My way and reach mere nothing. All my clues
Led to one spot--Thelopis; and that spot,
In spite of all my search, I found it not.
Oh, with what patience in these three long years
Have I not sought! Oh, with what hopes and fears
Have I not searched the present and the past
To find that place Thelopis! And at last
I have found out. Thelopis was a town,
If town it could be called, that was burnt down
Ten centuries ago, and where has grown
The present village Thos--the place that is
Nearest the temple of Peripolis:
The temple is Peripolis. And see,
The distance and direction both agree:
The passage says, ‘a five days’ eastward sail,
And then three days of road.’ No clues now fail;
There under Peripolis, girt round
By solitude and silence, will be found
The gold and ivory Pallas. Oh, I know
That you will answer that she long ago
Must have become mere shapeless mouldering dust--
That after seven centuries she must
Have blent with earth; and yet I say she stands
As grand and splendid as when all Greek lands
First hailed her beauty! Do you think that they
Who used such pains, in safety to convey
And hide her in that distant spot, would spare
The slight pains needed to exclude the air
And ward away the damp? Again I say
She lives--she lives!”
And so the following day
We started for Peripolis--a long
And arduous journey; for it lies among
Wild unfrequented mountains, in a small
And fever-stricken plain. The hills are all
Possessed by tribes which, though uncouth and wild,
Are not unfriendly. When you once have toiled
Through the last defiles, and behold the lone
Still distant ruins below you, that seem thrown
There to die slow, like those whom in its haste
A routed host abandons in the waste,
There creeps across your soul a sort of fear,
A sense of isolation such as ne’er
Has filled your heart. The broken columns throw
Their shadows on bare shingle; nought will grow
For miles around save thin scorched grass that feeds
A few lean goats, and some few clumps of reeds
Where there is water. Oh, the tract around
Speaks utter desolation; and we found
The task not easy even to collect
The workmen we required. The heaps of wrecked
And weed-grown marble where the spade was tried
Had more than once been searched, and seemed to hide
Nought worth men’s pains--at most some shattered bit
Of Greco-Roman sculpture; but we lit
On some strange crypts; and in a few more days
We had discovered a bewildering maze
Of subterranean chambers, large and small,
And catacomb-like passages, which all
Were cut in soft dry stone, and stretched away
Far underground, beyond the ruins that lay
In the sun’s light; and all were wholly bare.
Strongclyffe at once, pretending not to care
For empty crypts, employed the men elsewhere;
While he and I, by torch-light and alone,
Explored the maze. But sometimes, as loose stone
Obstructed here and there the way, we had
A boy to help--a dull half-witted lad
Of whom we felt no fear. For days we sought
With boundless care, but all our searching brought
Nothing to light; we sounded every wall,
We grew familiar with each inch of all
The lonely crypts; and even Strongclyffe seemed
To grow depressed. But suddenly there gleamed
Fresh ardour in his eyes: “Look there!” he said,
And showed me something like an arrow’s head
Cut in the wall; a small, scarce visible mark
Which led to others like it through the dark
Perplexing crypt; and where the last marks were
We scrutinized the wall with greater care,
And found its surface rougher, as if there
It had been tampered with. “This is the spot,”
He whispered. “She is here;” and having got
A pick, he struck. And as, beneath the stroke
Of Vulcan’s hammer once, the aching brow
Of Zeus was cleft for Pallas’ birth, so now
The stricken cloven stone exposed to sight
The long-sought Goddess; and the flickering light
Of the red torch flashed in a tremulous flood
Upon her golden breastplate as she stood
Intact, in all the glory and the glow
Of her incomparable beauty.
So
Was she discovered; I must now compel
My weak and miserable self to tell
How she was lost. There was no time to lose,
And we agreed, or rather Strongclyffe chose
That he should start at once for the chief town
Of that wild province, as he long had known
The there commanding Pasha, to obtain
A guard of men; while I was to remain
To watch the workmen. He was to be back
Within three days. Alas! I had no lack
Of buoyant thoughts at first; my soul was filled
With our immense success; my nerves still thrilled
With triumph and delight; and the first day
Of Strongclyffe’s absence lightly passed away.
The men worked on as usual, and my mind
Conceived no fear. But when the sun declined
There crept across my spirit, with the tide
Of slowly creeping shadow as day died,
A vague uneasiness; and my hands felt
For the revolver hanging at my belt,
I thought; and I remembered that when we
Had found the prize, we were not two but three.
The boy had seen the whole; and though I knew
That he was dull of wit and had no clue
To find the spot again in that vast maze
Of hidden crypts and subterranean ways,
I wished he had not seen. The men had gone
Back to their distant huts. I sat alone
Upon a broken column; one by one
The large stars twinkled forth from out the blue;
The shattered standing columns dusky grew,
And very solemn; and the wakening bat
Began to flit around me. As I sat,
I thought of Strongclyffe’s generosity;
How he had said ere setting out that I,
His faithful friend, must have an equal share
In the world’s praise; that it would not be fair
That I----
O God!
I gave a strangled shout
And fell, dragged backwards by a noose about
My throat. Three men were kneeling on my chest
Binding me tight with cords, while others pressed
All round about me, uttering no sound
As if all dumb. When I was firmly bound
All save my feet, which, purposely let loose
To let me walk, were in a running noose,
One of the men addressed me: “Listen well
To what I say,” he said. “If you rebel
We take your life; and none can help you now.
We have no wish to harm you; but we know
That you have found a treasure, and have got
The clue. Lead on.”
“I understand you not,”
I said.
He took a pistol from his sash
And held it at my ear. “Come, be not rash,”
He said, “but lead the way.” Oh, would to God
That he had fired! But though like a mere clod
I still moved not, he did not fire, but placed
Once more the gleaming pistol in his waist,
And whispered with the others; then they drew
The cords still tighter round my limbs, and threw
My unresisting body on the bed
In my own hut hard by. “Mark well,” they said,
“Ere dawn we come. Thy blood be on thy head!”
At first I had no thoughts, nought but the sense
Of cramped and swelling limbs, and an intense
Desire to burst my bonds. But by-and-by
A sense of infinite calamity
Began to weigh upon me; and at last,
The sense came home that time was slipping fast,
That I was there to make an awful choice
’Twixt Life and Death; and then an inner voice
Began to state the argument each way,
Not clearly, coldly, as I may to-day
Do in this letter, but confused, close-pressed,
Repeated and repeated in my breast
In every shape, until my weary brain,
Exhausted by the conflict and the pain,
Yielded to sleep. And even in my sleep
The struggle still went on; I felt it keep
Possession of my dreams, and take the shape
Of shifting nightmare, leaving no escape.
I saw the glorious Pallas, calm no more,
But threatening and terrific, kneeling o’er
My prostrate body, with red eyes that gleamed
So fiery in the darkness, that it seemed
As if one of the Furies had put on
Her golden panoply. Then, wild and wan,
I saw the face of Strongclyffe looming out
From a black whirling gulf; and heard him shout
Like some spent swimmer half sucked down.
And there
I think I woke, and with a vague despair
Resumed the pleadings of each adverse side;
While, ever louder, something in me cried:
“Choose death, choose death! in fifty years from this,
When thou art swallowed in the dark abyss
Of Time, what will it be to thee or thine
Whether thou diedst to-day at twenty-nine,
Or knew’st old age? But man whom Time devours
Not, and who lives by centuries, not hours,
Will be possessed of one transcendent gift,
To add to his small store of things that lift
The soul to higher spheres--a gift from which
Will flow perennial charm for poor and rich,
For young and old. If but mankind could know
That some great treasure lost long, long ago--
A famed Greek play, for instance--had been lost
Because a certain man had grudged the cost
Of his brief life to save it, that man’s name,
For ever handed down in scorn and shame,
Would be all nations’ by-word. Who can say
That some great work which man enjoys to-day--
The Melos statue, Hamlet or Macbeth,
Or the Gioconda--was not saved from death,
In some great unknown peril that it ran,
By some unknown, unthanked and nameless man
Who gave his life instead? And then, in place
Of something rarer yet, wouldst have the face
To give the world thy mean half-wasted life
With which it can do nought? Thou hast no wife,
No child to need thy care. Choose death, choose death,
While yet ’tis time!”
But oh the pleasant breath
Of life; the strong, strong stream of youth and health
That bounds along the veins; the unused wealth
Of what we call the Future, with its schemes,
Emotions, friendships, loves, surprises, dreams;
The thing we call Identity, the I
To which the wretched cling, they know not why,
And which no evils press me to destroy;
The simple pleasures which I now enjoy--
What, give up all? What right has Fate, what right,
To thrust me from Life’s hearth into the night,
The darkness and the cold? What right or need
Has Fate to come, and while I sit and read
Life’s pleasant page, to summon me to shut
The open book, and leave two thirds uncut?
Who dares to tell me that a living man
Whom God has made, who feels the cool winds fan
His heated brow, is not in God’s sight worth
A thing that is man’s work, upon this earth?
My life is mended now; each passing day
Now rolls, though idly, harmlessly away.
The bright green fields, the flowers and the trees,
The rippling streams, the sun, the passing breeze,
The million things that in their life rejoice
And gladden mine, call out with mighty voice,
“Choose life, choose life!”
And when at dawn they came,
And bade me show the spot--O shame! O shame!
I nodded an assent. Oh let me now,
With shame’s familiar brand upon my brow,
For once spare my base self, and hurry by
Those monstrous minutes! Slowly, silently,
I led them to the spot. I saw their eyes
With excusable rapture scan the prize
To which their souls were dead. I saw them take
Their hatchets in their impious hands, and break
Into small fragments hideous to behold,
And shapeless dust of ivory and of gold,
The beauty which the world would have despaired
To match, and twenty centuries had spared
In vain--in vain! Awhile, I think, I heard
Ferocious wrangling, oath and threatening word
Over the booty; but my sickened brain
Took little note. And when I sought again
To see and hear and think, all sounds had ceased;
I was alone, and free.
And--O mean beast,
Mean coward that I was!--I dared not face
The sight of Strongclyffe; but I fled the place,
Leaving a letter; and in guilt and fear,
Just like a thief, stole back to England here,
Alone with my incomparable debt.
He never saw me more; although we met
In these o’er-crowded London streets one day,
And oh how changed he was--how old and grey
He had become, though scarce two years had passed
Over his head since I had seen him last!
He saw me not, but passed with vacant eye;
While I, as if to vanish bodily
Into the solid stones, shrank to the wall.
He now is dead--and I? Oh, does not all
Compel me too to die? What have I done,
In these ten years of anguish, to atone
For having chosen life? What use--what good
Have I been to mankind since first I stood
So fatally and wholly in its debt?
What drops of compensation have I yet
Wrung out of my weak worthless self, and cast
Into the deep abyss? Oh, I have passed
A cruel, cruel time! And year by year
I feel less wish to live, less strength to bear
The weight of my immense insolvency.
And in the street as each man passes by
I mutter to myself, “If he but knew
What he has lost, would he not stop and sue
For what can ne’er be paid, and cry, ‘Come forth!
And show thyself to men, what thou art worth!
Thou art the thing which men have got instead
Of the Incomparable: raise thy head!’”