life, she would hardly recognize the countenance which dreams have painted as her living form. And where she might have hoped to look and find her image men painted centuries ago, she will find nothing but a faded canvas. But all these misrepresentations do not disturb her spirit. She knows that, since there are false gods, there also must be false dreams. The grace of antiquity may crumble to dust; the glamor of remoteness be as a dull light; romance swollen to inertia : from which the desire of her spirit has vanished. Our world of to-day, with its literalness of mood and feature, will be as dead as they, if the breath of this desire and spirit is not breathed into them at birth.

"Your modernist will protest that the gods are dead. Long live the factory and democracy they cry, this is body for the spirit of beauty and truth. But the gods were never more than symbols and oracles. The factory and democracy are no more than symbols and oracles to-day. Behind both these ancient and modern temples, is the soul of man. It alone makes life, and only where life is passionate, does the mystery of beauty and the secret of truth dwell. The merchandize of Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos & Co. is in the emporium of the human soul. Some poets are ever conscious of the wares bought and sold there. Mr. Robinson is one of these poets who knows the stock through and through. Mr. Hagedorn has been less familiar with the stocks of destiny. He never gave us the impression of

unweaving the obscure circumstances of life; that is why we are all the more surprised at the handling of such a theme in the Homeric substance of The Great Maze.'

"The spell of the three sisters is working upon the poet's mind in the creation of this poem. And beauty testifies to the truth of it. It is not merely because Mr. Hagedorn tells the story of a king and queen in Argos, two thousand and more years ago; of an episode in the golden and supreme story of antiquity; but because he makes that story true to his vision of fate. He has the kind of wisdom which understands human nature acting and reacting under the circumstances in which Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are placed. Does he not tell us how Agamemnon, returning from Troy after his ten years' absence, which his wife was made to believe would only be three months, sat watching her perplexed face, while his

eyes,

"Sought Clytemnestra's but his gaze
Stood suppliant in vain at those dark doors.
Once he had entered and been welcomed there
To sunny chambers odorous with winds
Murmuring garden-magic and sea-lore
Through open casements. Dimly he recalled
Lost tricks of her lost girlhood, April moods
Of swanlike queenliness afloat on dreams.
Deep words that sank in sparkling silences,
And evanescent angers and sharp thrusts,
Cruel, but for the swift, requiting lips.
All that was dead as Troy.

And does not the poet also tell us that, for all his taking of cities the inexcusable cause to the wife of the husband's ten years' absenceAgamemnon was only a child because he could not know life as Clytemnestra did? She, who brought forth Electra in his absence and who gave Iphigenia for the sacrifice at Aulis! The cry of this queen's heart is louder than all the noise of the sacking of Troy. Troy falling in ruins fell to silence. The agony of spirit in Clytemnestra rises from the ruins of time with louder and louder echoes. Hear the poet's voice at this great mo

ment:

66

She stared at him

A long, slow minute. On his bearded face
The light of stars shone faintly, where he stood
Erect and kingly, looming large and grand
In that strange childlikeness her arrows sped
Against in vain. She saw each fiery shaft,
Swift, stern and straight, fly to its mortal mark,
And marvelled, seeing how it struck, and lo,
Sprang back and fell, made impotent by some
Unearthly armor, proof against her skill.

She gazed at him with cool, straight, thoughtful gaze.

If only you were bad at heart,' she said,

'I might find words to make your soul ashamed
Of the bleak, windy ruin you have made.
But, no. You are not bad. You are a child.
You play your games and break so many things
Unchidden, that at last when you destroy
A priceless vase, you cannot comprehend

Why there are tears nor wherein lies the wrong. If you were bad, if you had devious ways, with clear eyes,

If you were not a good man,

Seeing one road and that road white and straight;
If you had any shadows in your soul

For plots to brew in and black hates be born,
You might suspect that in this world all ways
Are not straight ways or clear ways, and that souls
Are like deep woods, dark and mysterious
Even at noonday. You are blind to men,
Blind to their powers, their feeblenesses, blind
To the ten thousand tricks life lightly plays
With souls and with events. You did not dream
That when you battered Troy and burnt its towers
There was another city, not of stone,

That shook beneath your onslaughts. It withstood
A long, long while, and then at last it fell.
The wind is whistling in the ruins now,
Crying strange things you cannot understand.'
Her voice was steady, cold and grave, and sad

As is the sea's, when it is most serene.

It made the throat of Agamemnon beat

And choked the words that struggled like strong

men

Entombed, upward, for air and utterance,
And strove in vain. But Clytemnestra turned
Moodily toward the sea her calm, dark eyes,
That were themselves immeasurable seas
Peopled with exquisite arrows of white light
And terrors tentacled; and spoke once more.
'Because you are not bad at heart, I hope
That you will never know what you have done
To me and to my life. Good night. Go now.
Go, Agamemnon!""

“That is beautiful poetry," exclaimed Cassandra.

Psyche and Jason echoed the thought.

"Yes; but how its beauty would fade if it did not clothe the substance of life. This the poet gives in the crux of fate to which he submits the lives of this king and queen. Thus the poem moves towards catastrophe. Agamemnon is convinced through a discovery, not long after his return from Troy, that Clytemnestra's bitterness was not due to his long absence, but that her love for Ægisthus had made his return undesirable. Electra's prattling in the garden awakened suspicion. But Agamemnon's love for Clytemnestra was so great that he was willing to forgive if only he could win her back. He goes to her room late one night, crying,

"Where are you hiding, Clytemnestra? Speak.

I have not come to blame you. I who love you, And did you grievous wrong, how should I blame you?

Life is a great maze, Clytemnestra. You

And I were lost in it awhile. But look,
Love is the thread of it, love is the key.

We shall not walk in mazes any more.
Speak to me! Come to me!

and she answered,

'Agamemnon!'

and

She staggered toward him with wide arms.