Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/Nameless and Immortal

by Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam

NAMELESS AND IMMORTAL

Finished, in Pæstum's rose-embowering garden,
Stood Neptune's temple, and the man who planned
Sat near. His young wife, on his shoulder leaning,
Spun with the yellow distaff in her hand.
She listened to the piping of the herdsmen
Who tended on the hills their droves of swine,
And with an almost childish joy she murmured,
Twisting the flax about her fingers fine:
"My cup of happiness is filled to brimming.
The man who brings me home to Naxos' strand,
Now he has built yon glorious Neptune temple,
Returns, immortal, to his native land."

Then solemnly her husband answered her:
"No, when we die, our name will pass away
A few years after, but yon temple there
Will still be standing as it stands to-day.
Think you an artist in his time of power
Sees in the background multitudes that shout?
Nay, inward, only inward, turns his eye,
And he knows nothing of the world without.
'Tis therefore that the bard would weep hot blood
If he deliver not his pregnant soul;
But he would kiss each line wherein he sees
His spirit live again, true-born and whole.
'Tis in such lines as these he lives and moves.
He strives for immortality—but mark!
'Tis for his writings, never for himself;
The man's true reputation is his work.
What's Homer? At the very best a myth!
We seek to clasp a more enduring fame.
We see the pulses leap on Homer's brow,
For 'Iliad' has become his mighty name."

He rose, as if to go, but suddenly
She caught him by the cloak and held him fast
And murmured, while a hundred smiles dissolved
In the one look that furtively she cast:
"Still on a column there your name is carved.
If this proud vaunt be earnest, as you say,
Take from among the tools there at your feet
The biggest sledge and hew the name away!"

He turned, he shot at her a keen, quick glance,
But when she sat there calmly as before,
Twisting the flax into an even thread
And gazing at the masts along the shore,
He bent him down impulsively and took
The biggest sledge; his knuckles were distended
And then grew white as wax, so hard he gripped
Upon the haft. The lifted sledge descended.
It scattered sparks from out the column's side,
And at his feet the steps were sprinkled o'er
With rain of pointed shards. From that time forth
The temple bore the artist's name no more.

Then with a cry of joy his young wife sprang
Quickly from flax and distaff to the place,
And mid the scattered fragments of his fame
She fell and clasped his knees in her embrace.
"Ah, now," she cried, "no words can tell my joy,
As we return to Naxos whence we came.
Now is my lord a thousand times more great
And 'Pæstum's Temple' is his mighty name!"

So evening fell. A single ship went out
With lowered sail, a Naxos flag had she.
Slowly she rowed far out against the sun
And vanished on the mirror of the sea.

A thousand years and more have passed away,
Leveling Pæstum with the verdant plain,
But still the temple stands, and in its shade
The fiddlers wake Arcadian joys again.
The master's name may no man surely know,
But all who see the temple's gleaming height
May see his very soul in yonder form
And share to-day the architect's delight.
He is to me an old beloved friend—
Though far away, I know him in good truth—
A schoolmate, brother, comrade of my youth.