{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28666/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28666","id":"gutenberg_28666","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28666","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Poetry"],"text":"Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was\nproduced from scanned images of public domain material\nfrom the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  +------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | Transcriber's Note                                         |\n  |                                                            |\n  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in        |\n  | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of   |\n  | this document.                                             |\n  +------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\nHYMEN\n\nBy\n\nH. D.\n\nNEW YORK\nHENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n1921\n\n\n\n\nFOR BRYHER AND PERDITA\n\n\n\n\n    _They said:\n    she is high and far and blind\n    in her high pride,\n    but now that my head is bowed\n    in sorrow, I find\n    she is most kind._\n\n    _We have taken life, they said,\n    blithely, not groped in a mist\n    for things that are not--\n    are if you will, but bloodless--\n    why ask happiness of the dead?\n    and my heart bled._\n\n    _Ah, could they know\n    how violets throw strange fire,\n    red and purple and gold,\n    how they glow\n    gold and purple and red\n    where her feet tread._\n\n\n\n\nAcknowledgements are due to the editors of the following periodicals in\nwhich certain of these poems have appeared: _Poetry_ (Chicago), _The\nDial_, _Contact_ and _The Bookman_ (New York), _The Nation_, _The\nSphere_, _The Anglo-French Review_ and _The Egoist_ (London).\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nHYMEN                                        7\n\nDEMETER                                     15\n\nSIMAETHA                                    19\n\nTHETIS                                      20\n\nCIRCE                                       21\n\nLEDA                                        23\n\nHIPPOLYTUS TEMPORIZES                       24\n\nCUCKOO SONG                                 25\n\nTHE ISLANDS                                 27\n\nAT BAIA                                     30\n\nSEA HEROES                                  31\n\n\"NOT HONEY\"                                 33\n\nEVADNE                                      34\n\nSONG                                        35\n\nWHY HAVE YOU SOUGHT                         36\n\nTHE WHOLE WHITE WORLD                       37\n\nPHAEDRA                                     38\n\nSHE CONTRASTS WITH HERSELF HIPPOLYTA        40\n\nSHE REBUKES HIPPOLYTA                       42\n\nEGYPT                                       44\n\nHELIOS                                      45\n\nPRAYER                                      47\n\n\n\n\nHYMEN\n\n\n_As from a temple service, tall and dignified, with slow pace, each a\nqueen, the sixteen matrons from the temple of Hera pass before the\ncurtain--a dark purple hung between Ionic columns--of the porch or open\nhall of a palace. Their hair is bound as the marble hair of the temple\nHera. Each wears a crown or diadem of gold._\n\n_They sing--the music is temple music, deep, simple, chanting notes:_\n\n    From the closed garden\n    Where our feet pace\n    Back and forth each day,\n    This gladiolus white,\n    This red, this purple spray--\n    Gladiolus tall with dignity\n    As yours, lady--we lay\n    Before your feet and pray:\n\n    Of all the blessings--\n    Youth, joy, ecstasy--\n    May one gift last\n    (As the tall gladiolus may\n    Outlast the wind-flower,\n    Winter-rose or rose),\n    One gift above,\n    Encompassing all those;\n\n    For her, for him,\n    For all within these palace walls,\n    Beyond the feast,\n    Beyond the cry of Hymen and the torch,\n    Beyond the night and music\n    Echoing through the porch till day.\n\n_The music, with its deep chanting notes, dies away. The curtain hangs\nmotionless in rich, full folds. Then from this background of darkness,\ndignity and solemn repose, a flute gradually detaches itself, becomes\nclearer and clearer, pipes alone one shrill, simple little melody._\n\n_From the distance, four children's voices blend with the flute, and\nfour very little girls pass singly before the curtain, small maids or\nattendants of the sixteen matrons. Their hair is short and curls at the\nback of their heads like the hair of the chryselephantine Hermes. They\nsing:_\n\n    Where the first crocus buds unfold\n    We found these petals near the cold\n      Swift river-bed.\n\n    Beneath the rocks where ivy-frond\n    Puts forth new leaves to gleam beyond\n      Those lately dead:\n\n    The very smallest two or three\n    Of gold (gold pale as ivory)\n      We gathered.\n\n_When the little girls have passed before the curtain, a wood-wind\nweaves a richer note into the flute melody; then the two blend into one\nsong. But as the wood-wind grows in mellowness and richness, the flute\ngradually dies away into a secondary theme and the wood-wind alone\nevolves the melody of a new song._\n\n_Two by two--like two sets of medallions with twin profiles distinct,\none head slightly higher, bent forward a little--the four figures of\nfour slight, rather fragile taller children, are outlined with sharp\nwhite contour against the curtain._\n\n_The hair is smooth against the heads, falling to the shoulders but\nslightly waved against the nape of the neck. They are looking down, each\nat a spray of winter-rose. The tunics fall to the knees in sharp marble\nfolds. They sing:_\n\n    Never more will the wind\n    Cherish you again,\n    Never more will the rain.\n\n    Never more\n    Shall we find you bright\n    In the snow and wind.\n\n    The snow is melted,\n    The snow is gone,\n    And you are flown:\n\n    Like a bird out of our hand,\n    Like a light out of our heart,\n    You are gone.\n\n_As the wistful notes of the wood-wind gradually die away, there comes a\nsudden, shrill, swift piping._\n\n_Free and wild, like the wood-maidens of Artemis, is this last group of\nfour--very straight with heads tossed back. They sing in rich, free,\nswift notes. They move swiftly before the curtain in contrast to the\nslow, important pace of the first two groups. Their hair is loose and\nrayed out like that of the sun-god. They are boyish in shape and\ngesture. They carry hyacinths in baskets, strapped like quivers to their\nbacks. They reach to draw the flower sprays from the baskets, as the\nHuntress her arrows._\n\n_As they dart swiftly to and fro before the curtain, they are youth,\nthey are spring--they are the Chelidonia, their song is the swallow-song\nof joy:_\n\n    Between the hollows\n    Of the little hills\n    The spring spills blue--\n    Turquoise, sapphire, lapis-lazuli\n    On a brown cloth outspread.\n\n    Ah see,\n    How carefully we lay them now,\n    Each hyacinth spray,\n    Across the marble floor--\n    A pattern your bent eyes\n    May trace and follow\n    To the shut bridal door.\n\n    Lady, our love, our dear,\n    Our bride most fair,\n    They grew among the hollows\n    Of the hills;\n    As if the sea had spilled its blue,\n    As if the sea had risen\n    From its bed,\n    And sinking to the level of the shore,\n    Left hyacinths on the floor.\n\n_There is a pause. Flute, pipe and wood-wind blend in a full, rich\nmovement. There is no definite melody but full, powerful rhythm like\nsoft but steady wind above forest trees. Into this, like rain, gradually\ncreeps the note of strings._\n\n_As the strings grow stronger and finally dominate the whole, the\nbride-chorus passes before the curtain. There may be any number in this\nchorus. The figures--tall young women, clothed in long white\ntunics--follow one another closely, yet are all distinct like a\nprocession of a temple frieze._\n\n_The bride in the center is not at first distinguishable from her\nmaidens; but as they begin their song, the maidens draw apart into two\ngroups, leaving the veiled symbolic figure standing alone in the\ncenter._\n\n_The two groups range themselves to right and left like officiating\npriestesses. The veiled figure stands with her back against the curtain,\nthe others being in profile. Her head is swathed in folds of diaphanous\nwhite, through which the features are visible, like the veiled Tanagra._\n\n_When the song is finished, the group to the bride's left turns about;\nalso the bride, so that all face in one direction. In processional form\nthey pass out, the figure of the bride again merging, not\ndistinguishable from the maidens._\n\n_Strophe_\n\n    But of her\n    Who can say if she is fair?\n    Bound with fillet,\n    Bound with myrtle\n    Underneath her flowing veil,\n    Only the soft length\n    (Beneath her dress)\n    Of saffron shoe is bright\n    As a great lily-heart\n    In its white loveliness.\n\n_Antistrophe_\n\n    But of her\n    We can say that she is fair.\n    We bleached the fillet,\n    Brought the myrtle;\n    To us the task was set\n    Of knotting the fine threads of silk:\n    We fastened the veil,\n    And over the white foot\n    Drew on the painted shoe\n    Steeped in Illyrian crocus.\n\n_Strophe_\n\n    But of her,\n    Who can say if she is fair?\n    For her head is covered over\n    With her mantle\n    White on white,\n    Snow on whiter amaranth,\n    Snow on hoar-frost,\n    Snow on snow,\n    Snow on whitest buds of myrrh.\n\n_Antistrophe_\n\n    But of her,\n    We can say that she is fair;\n    For we know underneath\n    All the wanness,\n    All the heat\n    (In her blanched face)\n    Of desire\n    Is caught in her eyes as fire\n    In the dark center leaf\n    Of the white Syrian iris.\n\n_The rather hard, hieratic precision of the music--its stately pause and\nbeat--is broken now into irregular lilt and rhythm of strings._\n\n_Four tall young women, very young matrons, enter in a group. They stand\nclear and fair, but this little group entirely lacks the austere\nprecision of the procession of maidens just preceding them. They pause\nin the center of the stage; turn, one three-quarter, two in profile and\nthe fourth full face; they stand, turned as if confiding in each other\nlike a Tanagra group._\n\n_They sing lightly, their flower trays under their arms._\n\n    Along the yellow sand\n    Above the rocks\n    The laurel-bushes stand.\n    Against the shimmering heat\n    Each separate leaf\n    Is bright and cold,\n    And through the bronze\n    Of shining bark and wood\n    Run the fine threads of gold.\n\n    Here in our wicker-trays,\n    We bring the first faint blossoming\n    Of fragrant bays:\n\n    Lady, their blushes shine\n    As faint in hue\n    As when through petals\n    Of a laurel-rose\n    The sun shines through,\n    And throws a purple shadow\n    On a marble vase.\n\n    (Ah, love,\n    So her fair breasts will shine\n    With the faint shadow above.)\n\n_The harp chords become again more regular in simple definite rhythm.\nThe music is not so intense as the bride-chorus; and quieter, more\nsedate, than the notes preceding the entrance of the last group._\n\n_Five or six slightly older serene young women enter in processional\nform; each holding before her, with precise bending of arms, coverlets\nand linen, carefully folded, as if for the bride couch. The garments are\npurple, scarlet and deep blue, with edge of gold._\n\n_They sing to blending of wood-wind and harp._\n\n    From citron-bower be her bed,\n    Cut from branch of tree a-flower,\n    Fashioned for her maidenhead.\n\n    From Lydian apples, sweet of hue,\n    Cut the width of board and lathe.\n    Carve the feet from myrtle-wood.\n\n    Let the palings of her bed\n    Be quince and box-wood overlaid\n    With the scented bark of yew.\n\n    That all the wood in blossoming,\n    May calm her heart and cool her blood\n    For losing of her maidenhood.\n\n_The wood-winds become more rich and resonant. A tall youth crosses the\nstage as if seeking the bride door. The music becomes very rich, full of\ncolor._\n\n_The figure itself is a flame, an exaggerated symbol; the hair a flame;\nthe wings, deep red or purple, stand out against the curtains in a\ncontrasting or almost clashing shade of purple. The tunic, again a rich\npurple or crimson, falls almost to the knees. The knees are bare; the\nsandals elaborately strapped over and over. The curtain seems a rich\npurple cloud, the figure, still brighter, like a flamboyant bird, half\nemerged in the sunset._\n\n_Love pauses just outside the bride's door with his gift, a tuft of\nblack-purple cyclamen. He sings to the accompaniment of wood-winds, in a\nrich, resonant voice:_\n\n    The crimson cover of her bed\n    Is not so rich, nor so deeply bled\n    The purple-fish that dyed it red,\n    As when in a hot sheltered glen\n    There flowered these stalks of cyclamen:\n\n    (Purple with honey-points\n    Of horns for petals;\n    Sweet and dark and crisp,\n    As fragrant as her maiden kiss.)\n\n    There with his honey-seeking lips\n    The bee clings close and warmly sips,\n    And seeks with honey-thighs to sway\n    And drink the very flower away.\n\n    (Ah, stern the petals drawing back;\n    Ah rare, ah virginal her breath!)\n\n    Crimson, with honey-seeking lips,\n    The sun lies hot across his back,\n    The gold is decked across his wings.\n    Quivering he sways and quivering clings\n    (Ah, rare her shoulders drawing back!)\n    One moment, then the plunderer slips\n    Between the purple flower-lips.\n\n_Love passes out with a crash of cymbals. There is a momentary pause and\nthe music falls into its calm, wave-like rhythm._\n\n_A band of boys passes before the curtain. They pass from side to side,\ncrossing and re-crossing; but their figures never confuse one another,\nthe outlines are never blurred. They stand out against the curtain with\nsymbolic gesture, stooping as if to gather up the wreaths, or swaying\nwith long stiff branch as if to sweep the fallen petals from the\nfloor._\n\n_There is no marked melody from the instruments, but the boys' voices,\nhumming lightly as they enter, gradually evolve a little dance song.\nThere are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' tenor voices._\n\n_Then, as if they had finished the task of gathering up the wreaths and\nsweeping the petals, they stand in groups of two before the pillars\nwhere the torches have been placed. They lift the torches from the\nbrackets. They hold them aloft between them, one torch to each two boys.\nTheir figures are cut against the curtain like the simple, triangular\ndesign on the base of a vase or frieze--the boys' heads on a level, the\ntorches above them._\n\n_They sing in clear, half-subdued voices._\n\n    Where love is king,\n    Ah, there is little need\n    To dance and sing,\n    With bridal-torch to flare\n    Amber and scatter light\n    Across the purple air,\n    To sing and dance\n    To flute-note and to reed.\n\n    Where love is come\n    (Ah, love is come indeed!)\n    Our limbs are numb\n    Before his fiery need;\n    With all their glad\n    Rapture of speech unsaid,\n    Before his fiery lips\n    Our lips are mute and dumb.\n\n    Ah, sound of reed,\n    Ah, flute and trumpet wail,\n    Ah, joy decreed--\n    The fringes of her veil\n    Are seared and white;\n    Across the flare of light,\n    Blinded the torches fail.\n    (Ah, love is come indeed!)\n\n_At the end of the song, the torches flicker out and the figures are no\nlonger distinguishable in the darkness. They pass out like shadows. The\npurple curtain hangs black and heavy._\n\n_The music dies away and is finally cut short with a few deep, muted\nchords._\n\n\n\n\nDEMETER\n\n\n    I\n\n    Men, fires, feasts,\n    steps of temple, fore-stone, lintel,\n    step of white altar, fire and after-fire,\n    slaughter before,\n    fragment of burnt meat,\n    deep mystery, grapple of mind to reach\n    the tense thought,\n    power and wealth, purpose and prayer alike,\n    (men, fires, feasts, temple steps)--useless.\n\n    Useless to me who plant\n    wide feet on a mighty plinth,\n    useless to me who sit,\n    wide of shoulder, great of thigh,\n    heavy in gold, to press\n    gold back against solid back\n    of the marble seat:\n    useless the dragons wrought on the arms,\n    useless the poppy-buds and the gold inset\n    of the spray of wheat.\n\n    Ah they have wrought me heavy\n    and great of limb--\n    she is slender of waist,\n    slight of breast, made of many fashions;\n    they have set _her_ small feet\n    on many a plinth;\n    she they have known,\n    she they have spoken with,\n    she they have smiled upon,\n    she they have caught\n    and flattered with praise and gifts.\n\n    But useless the flattery\n    of the mighty power\n    they have granted me:\n    for I will not stay in her breast\n    the great of limb,\n    though perfect the shell they have\n    fashioned me, these men!\n\n    Do I sit in the market place--\n    do I smile, does a noble brow\n    bend like the brow of Zeus--\n    am I a spouse, his or any,\n    am I a woman, or goddess or queen,\n    to be met by a god with a smile--and left?\n\n\n    II\n\n    Do you ask for a scroll,\n    parchment, oracle, prophecy, precedent;\n    do you ask for tablets marked with thought\n    or words cut deep on the marble surface,\n    do you seek measured utterance or the mystic trance?\n\n    Sleep on the stones of Delphi--\n    dare the ledges of Pallas\n    but keep me foremost,\n    keep me before you, after you, with you,\n    never forget when you start\n    for the Delphic precipice,\n    never forget when you seek Pallas\n    and meet in thought\n    yourself drawn out from yourself\n    like the holy serpent,\n    never forget\n    in thought or mysterious trance--\n    I am greatest and least.\n\n    Soft are the hands of Love,\n    soft, soft are his feet;\n    you who have twined myrtle,\n    have you brought crocuses,\n    white as the inner\n    stript bark of the osier,\n    have you set\n    black crocus against the black\n    locks of another?\n\n\n    III\n\n    Of whom do I speak?\n\n    Many the children of gods\n    but first I take\n    Bromios, fostering prince,\n    lift from the ivy brake, a king.\n\n    Enough of the lightning,\n    enough of the tales that speak\n    of the death of the mother:\n    strange tales of a shelter\n    brought to the unborn,\n    enough of tale, myth, mystery, precedent--\n    a child lay on the earth asleep.\n\n    Soft are the hands of Love,\n    but what soft hands\n    clutched at the thorny ground,\n    scratched like a small white ferret\n    or foraging whippet or hound,\n    sought nourishment and found\n    only the crackling of ivy,\n    dead ivy leaf and the white\n    berry, food for a bird,\n    no food for this who sought,\n    bending small head in a fever,\n    whining with little breath.\n\n    Ah, small black head,\n    ah, the purple ivy bush,\n    ah, berries that shook and spilt\n    on the form beneath,\n    who begot you and left?\n\n    Though I begot no man child\n    all my days,\n    the child of my heart and spirit,\n    is the child the gods desert\n    alike and the mother in death--\n    the unclaimed Dionysios.\n\n\n    IV\n\n    _What of her--\n    mistress of Death?_\n\n    Form of a golden wreath\n    were my hands that girt her head,\n    fingers that strove to meet,\n    and met where the whisps escaped\n    from the fillet, of tenderest gold,\n    small circlet and slim\n    were my fingers then.\n\n    Now they are wrought of iron\n    to wrest from earth\n    secrets; strong to protect,\n    strong to keep back the winter\n    when winter tracks too soon\n    blanch the forest:\n    strong to break dead things,\n    the young tree, drained of sap,\n    the old tree, ready to drop,\n    to lift from the rotting bed\n    of leaves, the old\n    crumbling pine tree stock,\n    to heap bole and knot of fir\n    and pine and resinous oak,\n    till fire shatter the dark\n    and hope of spring\n    rise in the hearts of men.\n\n    _What of her--\n    mistress of Death--\n    what of his kiss?_\n\n    Ah, strong were his arms to wrest\n    slight limbs from the beautiful earth,\n    young hands that plucked the first\n    buds of the chill narcissus,\n    soft fingers that broke\n    and fastened the thorny stalk\n    with the flower of wild acanthus.\n\n    Ah, strong were the arms that took\n    (ah evil, the heart and graceless,)\n    but the kiss was less passionate!\n\n\n\n\nSIMAETHA\n\n\n    Drenched with purple,\n    drenched with dye, my wool,\n    bind you the wheel-spokes--\n    turn, turn, turn my wheel!\n\n    Drenched with purple,\n    steeped in the red pulp\n    of bursting sea-sloes--\n    turn, turn, turn my wheel!\n\n    (Ah did he think\n    I did not know,\n    I did not feel--\n    what wrack, what weal for him:\n    golden one, golden one,\n    turn again Aphrodite with the yellow zone,\n    I am cursed, cursed, undone!\n    Ah and my face, Aphrodite,\n    beside your gold,\n    is cut out of white stone!)\n\n    Laurel blossom and the red seed\n    of the red vervain weed,\n    burn, crackle in the fire,\n    burn, crackle for my need!\n    Laurel leaf, O fruited\n    branch of bay,\n    burn, burn away\n    thought, memory and hurt!\n\n    (Ah when he comes,\n    stumbling across my sill,\n    will he find me still,\n    fragrant as the white privet,\n    or as a bone,\n    polished in wet and sun,\n    worried of wild beaks,\n    and of the whelps' teeth--\n    worried of flesh,\n    left to bleach under the sun,\n    white as ash bled of heat,\n    white as hail blazing in sheet-lightning,\n    white as forked lightning\n    rending the sleet?)\n\n\n\n\nTHETIS\n\n\n    I\n\n    On the paved parapet\n    you will step carefully\n    from amber stones to onyx\n    flecked with violet,\n    mingled with light,\n    half showing the sea-grass\n    and sea-sand underneath,\n    reflecting your white feet\n    and the gay strap crimson\n    as lily-buds of Arion,\n    and the gold that binds your feet.\n\n\n    II\n\n    You will pass\n    beneath the island disk\n    (and myrtle-wood,\n    the carved support of it)\n    and the white stretch\n    of its white beach,\n    curved as the moon crescent\n    or ivory when some fine hand\n    chisels it:\n    when the sun slips\n    through the far edge,\n    there is rare amber\n    through the sea,\n    and flecks of it\n    glitter on the dolphin's back\n    and jewelled halter\n    and harness and bit\n    as he sways under it.\n\n\n\n\nCIRCE\n\n\n    It was easy enough\n    to bend them to my wish,\n    it was easy enough\n    to alter them with a touch,\n    but you\n    adrift on the great sea,\n    how shall I call you back?\n\n    Cedar and white ash,\n    rock-cedar and sand plants\n    and tamarisk\n    red cedar and white cedar\n    and black cedar from the inmost forest,\n    fragrance upon fragrance\n    and all of my sea-magic is for nought.\n\n    It was easy enough--\n    a thought called them\n    from the sharp edges of the earth;\n    they prayed for a touch,\n    they cried for the sight of my face,\n    they entreated me\n    till in pity\n    I turned each to his own self.\n\n    Panther and panther,\n    then a black leopard\n    follows close--\n    black panther and red\n    and a great hound,\n    a god-like beast,\n    cut the sand in a clear ring\n    and shut me from the earth,\n    and cover the sea-sound\n    with their throats,\n    and the sea-roar with their own barks\n    and bellowing and snarls,\n    and the sea-stars\n    and the swirl of the sand,\n    and the rock-tamarisk\n    and the wind resonance--\n    but not your voice.\n\n    It is easy enough to call men\n    from the edges of the earth.\n    It is easy enough to summon them to my feet\n    with a thought--\n    it is beautiful to see the tall panther\n    and the sleek deer-hounds\n    circle in the dark.\n\n    It is easy enough\n    to make cedar and white ash fumes\n    into palaces\n    and to cover the sea-caves\n    with ivory and onyx.\n\n    But I would give up\n    rock-fringes of coral\n    and the inmost chamber\n    of my island palace\n    and my own gifts\n    and the whole region\n    of my power and magic\n    for your glance.\n\n\n\n\nLEDA\n\n\n    Where the slow river\n    meets the tide,\n    a red swan lifts red wings\n    and darker beak,\n    and underneath the purple down\n    of his soft breast\n    uncurls his coral feet.\n\n    Through the deep purple\n    of the dying heat\n    of sun and mist,\n    the level ray of sun-beam\n    has caressed\n    the lily with dark breast,\n    and flecked with richer gold\n    its golden crest.\n\n    Where the slow lifting\n    of the tide,\n    floats into the river\n    and slowly drifts\n    among the reeds,\n    and lifts the yellow flags,\n    he floats\n    where tide and river meet.\n\n    Ah kingly kiss--\n    no more regret\n    nor old deep memories\n    to mar the bliss;\n    where the low sedge is thick,\n    the gold day-lily\n    outspreads and rests\n    beneath soft fluttering\n    of red swan wings\n    and the warm quivering\n    of the red swan's breast.\n\n\n\n\nHIPPOLYTUS TEMPORIZES\n\n\n    I worship the greatest first--\n    (it were sweet, the couch,\n    the brighter ripple of cloth\n    over the dipped fleece;\n    the thought: her bones\n    under the flesh are white\n    as sand which along a beach\n    covers but keeps the print\n    of the crescent shapes beneath:\n    I thought:\n    between cloth and fleece,\n    so her body lies.)\n\n    I worship first, the great--\n    (ah, sweet, your eyes--\n    what God, invoked in Crete,\n    gave them the gift to part\n    as the Sidonian myrtle-flower\n    suddenly, wide and swart,\n    then swiftly,\n    the eye-lids having provoked our hearts--\n    as suddenly beat and close.)\n\n    I worship the feet, flawless,\n    that haunt the hills--\n    (ah, sweet, dare I think,\n    beneath fetter of golden clasp,\n    of the rhythm, the fall and rise\n    of yours, carven, slight\n    beneath straps of gold that keep\n    their slender beauty caught,\n    like wings and bodies\n    of trapped birds.)\n\n    I worship the greatest first--\n    (suddenly into my brain--\n    the flash of sun on the snow,\n    the fringe of light and the drift,\n    the crest and the hill-shadow--\n    ah, surely now I forget,\n    ah splendour, my goddess turns:\n    or was it the sudden heat,\n    beneath quivering of molten flesh,\n    of veins, purple as violets?)\n\n\n\n\nCUCKOO SONG\n\n\n    Ah, bird,\n    our love is never spent\n    with your clear note,\n    nor satiate our soul;\n    not song, not wail, not hurt,\n    but just a call summons us\n    with its simple top-note\n    and soft fall;\n\n    not to some rarer heaven\n    of lilies over-tall,\n    nor tuberose set against\n    some sun-lit wall,\n    but to a gracious\n    cedar-palace hall;\n\n    not marble set with purple\n    hung with roses and tall\n    sweet lilies--such\n    as the nightingale\n    would summon for us\n    with her wail--\n    (surely only unhappiness\n    could thrill\n    such a rich madrigal!)\n    not she, the nightingale\n    can fill our souls\n    with such a wistful joy as this:\n\n    nor, bird, so sweet\n    was ever a swallow note--\n    not hers, so perfect\n    with the wing of lazuli\n    and bright breast--\n    nor yet the oriole\n    filling with melody\n    from her fiery throat\n    some island-orchard\n    in a purple sea.\n\n    Ah dear, ah gentle bird,\n    you spread warm length\n    of crimson wool\n    and tinted woven stuff\n    for us to rest upon,\n    nor numb with ecstasy\n    nor drown with death:\n\n    only you soothe, make still\n    the throbbing of our brain:\n    so through her forest trees,\n    when all her hope was gone\n    and all her pain,\n    Calypso heard your call--\n    across the gathering drift\n    of burning cedar-wood,\n    across the low-set bed\n    of wandering parsley and violet,\n    when all her hope was dead.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ISLANDS\n\n\n    I\n\n    What are the islands to me,\n    what is Greece,\n    what is Rhodes, Samos, Chios,\n    what is Paros facing west,\n    what is Crete?\n\n    What is Samothrace,\n    rising like a ship,\n    what is Imbros rending the storm-waves\n    with its breast?\n\n    What is Naxos, Paros, Milos,\n    what the circle about Lycia,\n    what, the Cyclades'\n    white necklace?\n\n    What is Greece--\n    Sparta, rising like a rock,\n    Thebes, Athens,\n    what is Corinth?\n\n    What is Euboia\n    with its island violets,\n    what is Euboia, spread with grass,\n    set with swift shoals,\n    what is Crete?\n\n    What are the islands to me,\n    what is Greece?\n\n\n    II\n\n    What can love of land give to me\n    that you have not--\n    what do the tall Spartans know,\n    and gentler Attic folk?\n\n    What has Sparta and her women\n    more than this?\n\n    What are the islands to me\n    if you are lost--\n    what is Naxos, Tinos, Andros,\n    and Delos, the clasp\n    of the white necklace?\n\n\n    III\n\n    What can love of land give to me\n    that you have not,\n    what can love of strife break in me\n    that you have not?\n\n    Though Sparta enter Athens,\n    Thebes wrack Sparta,\n    each changes as water,\n    salt, rising to wreak terror\n    and fall back.\n\n\n    IV\n\n    \"What has love of land given to you\n    that I have not?\"\n\n    I have questioned Tyrians\n    where they sat\n    on the black ships,\n    weighted with rich stuffs,\n    I have asked the Greeks\n    from the white ships,\n    and Greeks from ships whose hulks\n    lay on the wet sand, scarlet\n    with great beaks.\n    I have asked bright Tyrians\n    and tall Greeks--\n    \"what has love of land given you?\"\n    And they answered--\"peace.\"\n\n\n    V\n\n    But beauty is set apart,\n    beauty is cast by the sea,\n    a barren rock,\n    beauty is set about\n    with wrecks of ships,\n    upon our coast, death keeps\n    the shallows--death waits\n    clutching toward us\n    from the deeps.\n\n    Beauty is set apart;\n    the winds that slash its beach,\n    swirl the coarse sand\n    upward toward the rocks.\n\n    Beauty is set apart\n    from the islands\n    and from Greece.\n\n\n    VI\n\n    In my garden\n    the winds have beaten\n    the ripe lilies;\n    in my garden, the salt\n    has wilted the first flakes\n    of young narcissus,\n    and the lesser hyacinth,\n    and the salt has crept\n    under the leaves of the white hyacinth.\n\n    In my garden\n    even the wind-flowers lie flat,\n    broken by the wind at last.\n\n\n    VII\n\n    What are the islands to me\n    if you are lost,\n    what is Paros to me\n    if your eyes draw back,\n    what is Milos\n    if you take fright of beauty,\n    terrible, torturous, isolated,\n    a barren rock?\n\n    What is Rhodes, Crete,\n    what is Paros facing west,\n    what, white Imbros?\n\n    What are the islands to me\n    if you hesitate,\n    what is Greece if you draw back\n    from the terror\n    and cold splendour of song\n    and its bleak sacrifice?\n\n\n\n\nAT BAIA\n\n\n    I should have thought\n    in a dream you would have brought\n    some lovely, perilous thing,\n    orchids piled in a great sheath,\n    as who would say (in a dream)\n    I send you this,\n    who left the blue veins\n    of your throat unkissed.\n\n    Why was it that your hands\n    (that never took mine)\n    your hands that I could see\n    drift over the orchid heads\n    so carefully,\n    your hands, so fragile, sure to lift\n    so gently, the fragile flower stuff--\n    ah, ah, how was it\n\n    You never sent (in a dream)\n    the very form, the very scent,\n    not heavy, not sensuous,\n    but perilous--perilous--\n    of orchids, piled in a great sheath,\n    and folded underneath on a bright scroll\n    some word:\n\n    Flower sent to flower;\n    for white hands, the lesser white,\n    less lovely of flower leaf,\n\n    or\n\n    Lover to lover, no kiss,\n    no touch, but forever and ever this.\n\n\n\n\nSEA HEROES\n\n\n    Crash on crash of the sea,\n    straining to wreck men, sea-boards, continents,\n    raging against the world, furious,\n    stay at last, for against your fury\n    and your mad fight,\n    the line of heroes stands, god-like:\n\n    Akroneos, Oknolos, Elatreus,\n    helm-of-boat, loosener-of-helm, dweller-by-sea,\n    Nauteus, sea-man,\n    Prumneos, stern-of-ship,\n    Agchialos, sea-girt,\n    Elatreus, oar-shaft:\n    lover-of-the-sea, lover-of-the-sea-ebb,\n    lover-of-the-swift-sea,\n    Ponteus, Proreus, Ooos:\n    Anabesneos, one caught between\n    wave-shock and wave-shock:\n    Eurualos, broad sea-wrack,\n    like Ares, man's death,\n    and Naubolides, best in shape,\n    of all first in size:\n    Phaekous, seas' thunderbolt--\n    ah, crash on crash of great names--\n    man-tamer, man's-help, perfect Laodamos:\n    and last the sons of great Alkinoos,\n    Laodamos, Halios and god-like Clytomeos.\n\n    Of all nations, of all cities,\n    of all continents,\n    she is favoured among the rest,\n    for she gives men as great as the sea,\n    valorous to the fight,\n    to battle against the elements and evil:\n    greater even than the sea,\n    they live beyond wrack and death of cities,\n    and each god-like name spoken\n    is as a shrine in a godless place.\n\n    But to name you,\n    we reverent are breathless,\n    weak with pain and old loss,\n    and exile and despair--\n    our hearts break but to speak\n    your name, Oknaleos--\n    and may we but call you in the feverish wrack\n    of our storm-strewn beach, Eretmeos,\n    and our hurt is quiet and our hearts tamed,\n    as the sea may yet be tamed,\n    and we vow to float great ships,\n    named for each hero,\n    and oar-blades, cut out of mountain-trees\n    as such men might have shaped:\n    Eretmeos and the sea is swept,\n    baffled by the lordly shape,\n    Akroneos has pines for his ship's keel;\n    to love, to mate the sea?\n    Ah there is Ponteos,\n    the very deeps roar,\n    hailing you dear--\n    they clamour to Ponteos,\n    and to Proeos\n    leap, swift to kiss, to curl, to creep,\n    lover to mistress.\n\n    What wave, what love, what foam,\n    for Ooos who moves swift as the sea?\n    Ah stay, my heart, the weight\n    of lovers, of loneliness\n    drowns me,\n    alas that their very names\n    so press to break my heart\n    with heart-sick weariness,\n    what would they be,\n    the very gods,\n    rearing their mighty length\n    beside the unharvested sea?\n\n\n\n\n\"NOT HONEY\"\n\n\n    Not honey,\n    not the plunder of the bee\n    from meadow or sand-flower\n    or mountain bush;\n    from winter-flower or shoot\n    born of the later heat:\n    not honey, not the sweet\n    stain on the lips and teeth:\n    not honey, not the deep\n    plunge of soft belly\n    and the clinging of the gold-edged\n    pollen-dusted feet.\n\n    Not so--\n    though rapture blind my eyes,\n    and hunger crisp\n    dark and inert my mouth,\n    not honey, not the south,\n    not the tall stalk\n    of red twin-lilies,\n    nor light branch of fruit tree\n    caught in flexible light branch.\n\n    Not honey, not the south;\n    ah flower of purple iris,\n    flower of white,\n    or of the iris, withering the grass--\n    for fleck of the sun's fire,\n    gathers such heat and power,\n    that shadow-print is light,\n    cast through the petals\n    of the yellow iris flower.\n\n    Not iris--old desire--old passion--\n    old forgetfulness--old pain--\n    not this, nor any flower,\n    but if you turn again,\n    seek strength of arm and throat,\n    touch as the god;\n    neglect the lyre-note;\n    knowing that you shall feel,\n    about the frame,\n    no trembling of the string\n    but heat, more passionate\n    of bone and the white shell\n    and fiery tempered steel.\n\n\n\n\nEVADNE\n\n\n    I first tasted under Apollo's lips\n    love and love sweetness,\n    I Evadne;\n    my hair is made of crisp violets\n    or hyacinth which the wind combs back\n    across some rock shelf;\n    I Evadne\n    was mate of the god of light.\n\n    His hair was crisp to my mouth\n    as the flower of the crocus,\n    across my cheek,\n    cool as the silver cress\n    on Erotos bank;\n    between my chin and throat\n    his mouth slipped over and over.\n\n    Still between my arm and shoulder,\n    I feel the brush of his hair,\n    and my hands keep the gold they took\n    as they wandered over and over\n    that great arm-full of yellow flowers.\n\n\n\n\nSONG\n\n\n    You are as gold\n    as the half-ripe grain\n    that merges to gold again,\n    as white as the white rain\n    that beats through\n    the half-opened flowers\n    of the great flower tufts\n    thick on the black limbs\n    of an Illyrian apple bough.\n\n    Can honey distill such fragrance\n    as your bright hair--\n    for your face is as fair as rain,\n    yet as rain that lies clear\n    on white honey-comb,\n    lends radiance to the white wax,\n    so your hair on your brow\n    casts light for a shadow.\n\n\n\n\nWHY HAVE YOU SOUGHT\n\n\n    Why have you sought the Greeks, Eros,\n    when such delight was yours\n    in the far depth of sky:\n    there you could note bright ivory\n    take colour where she bent her face,\n    and watch fair gold shed gold\n    on radiant surface of porch and pillar:\n    and ivory and bright gold,\n    polished and lustrous grow faint\n    beside that wondrous flesh\n    and print of her foot-hold:\n    Love, why do you tempt the Grecian porticoes?\n\n    Here men are bent with thought\n    and women waste fair moments\n    gathering lint and pricking coloured stuffs\n    to mar their breasts,\n    while she, adored,\n    wastes not her fingers,\n    worn of fire and sword,\n    wastes not her touch\n    on linen and fine thread,\n    wastes not her head\n    in thought and pondering,\n    Love, why have you sought the horde\n    of spearsmen, why the tent\n    Achilles pitched beside the river-ford?\n\n\n\n\nTHE WHOLE WHITE WORLD\n\n\n    The whole white world is ours,\n    and the world, purple with rose-bays,\n    bays, bush on bush,\n    group, thicket, hedge and tree,\n    dark islands in a sea\n    of grey-green olive or wild white-olive,\n    cut with the sudden cypress shafts,\n    in clusters, two or three,\n    or with one slender, single cypress-tree.\n\n    Slid from the hill,\n    as crumbling snow-peaks slide,\n    citron on citron fill\n    the valley, and delight\n    waits till our spirits tire\n    of forest, grove and bush\n    and purple flower of the laurel-tree.\n\n    Yet not one wearies,\n    joined is each to each\n    in happiness complete\n    with bush and flower:\n    ours is the wind-breath\n    at the hot noon-hour,\n    ours is the bee's soft belly\n    and the blush of the rose-petal,\n    lifted, of the flower.\n\n\n\n\nPHAEDRA\n\n\n    Think, O my soul,\n    of the red sand of Crete;\n    think of the earth; the heat\n    burnt fissures like the great\n    backs of the temple serpents;\n    think of the world you knew;\n    as the tide crept, the land\n    burned with a lizard-blue\n    where the dark sea met the sand.\n\n    Think, O my soul--\n    what power has struck you blind--\n    is there no desert-root, no forest-berry\n    pine-pitch or knot of fir\n    known that can help the soul\n    caught in a force, a power,\n    passionless, not its own?\n\n    So I scatter, so implore\n    Gods of Crete, summoned before\n    with slighter craft;\n    ah, hear my prayer:\n\n    Grant to my soul\n    the body that it wore,\n    trained to your thought,\n    that kept and held your power,\n    as the petal of black poppy,\n    the opiate of the flower.\n\n    For art undreamt in Crete,\n    strange art and dire,\n    in counter-charm prevents my charm\n    limits my power:\n    pine-cone I heap,\n    grant answer to my prayer.\n\n    No more, my soul--\n    as the black cup, sullen and dark with fire,\n    burns till beside it, noon's bright heat\n    is withered, filled with dust--\n    and into that noon-heat\n    grown drab and stale,\n    suddenly wind and thunder and swift rain,\n    till the scarlet flower is wrecked\n    in the slash of the white hail.\n\n    The poppy that my heart was,\n    formed to blind all mortals,\n    made to strike and gather hearts\n    like flame upon an altar,\n    fades and shrinks, a red leaf\n    drenched and torn in the cold rain.\n\n\n\n\nSHE CONTRASTS WITH HERSELF HIPPOLYTA\n\n\n    Can flame beget white steel--\n    ah no, it could not take\n    within my reins its shelter;\n    steel must seek steel,\n    or hate make out of joy\n    a whet-stone for a sword;\n    sword against flint,\n    Theseus sought Hippolyta;\n    she yielded not nor broke,\n    sword upon stone,\n    from the clash leapt a spark,\n    Hippolytus, born of hate.\n\n    What did she think\n    when all her strength\n    was twisted for his bearing;\n    did it break,\n    even within her sheltered heart, a song,\n    some whispered note,\n    distant and faint as this:\n\n    _Love that I bear\n    within my breast\n    how is my armour melted\n    how my heart:\n    as an oak-tree\n    that keeps beneath the snow,\n    the young bark fresh\n    till the spring cast\n    from off its shoulders\n    the white snow\n    so does my armour melt._\n\n    _Love that I bear\n    within my heart, O speak;\n    tell how beneath the serpent-spotted shell,\n    the cygnets wait,\n    how the soft owl\n    opens and flicks with pride,\n    eye-lids of great bird-eyes,\n    when underneath its breast\n    the owlets shrink and turn._\n\n    You have the power,\n    (then did she say) Artemis,\n    benignity to grant\n    forgiveness that I gave\n    no quarter to an enemy who cast\n    his armour on the forest-moss,\n    and took, unmatched in an uneven contest,\n    Hippolyta who relented not,\n    returned and sought no kiss.\n\n    Then did she pray: Artemis,\n    grant that no flower\n    be grafted alien on a broken stalk,\n    no dark flame-laurel on the stricken crest\n    of a wild mountain-poplar;\n    grant in my thought,\n    I never yield but wait,\n    entreating cold white river,\n    mountain-pool and salt:\n    let all my veins be ice,\n    until they break\n    (strength of white beach,\n    rock of mountain land,\n    forever to you, Artemis, dedicate)\n    from out my reins,\n    those small, cold hands.\n\n\n\n\nSHE REBUKES HIPPOLYTA\n\n\n    Was she so chaste?\n\n    Swift and a broken rock\n    clatters across the steep shelf\n    of the mountain slope,\n    sudden and swift\n    and breaks as it clatters down\n    into the hollow breach\n    of the dried water-course:\n    far and away\n    (through fire I see it,\n    and smoke of the dead, withered stalks\n    of the wild cistus-brush)\n    Hippolyta, frail and wild,\n    galloping up the slope\n    between great boulder and rock\n    and group and cluster of rock.\n\n    Was she so chaste,\n    (I see it, sharp, this vision,\n    and each fleck on the horse's flanks\n    of foam, and bridle and bit,\n    silver, and the straps,\n    wrought with their perfect art,\n    and the sun,\n    striking athwart the silver-work,\n    and the neck, strained forward, ears alert,\n    and the head of a girl\n    flung back and her throat.)\n\n    Was she so chaste--\n    (Ah, burn my fire, I ask\n    out of the smoke-ringed darkness\n    enclosing the flaming disk\n    of my vision)\n    I ask for a voice to answer:\n    was she chaste?\n\n    Who can say--\n    the broken ridge of the hills\n    was the line of a lover's shoulder,\n    his arm-turn, the path to the hills,\n    the sudden leap and swift thunder\n    of mountain boulders, his laugh.\n\n    She was mad--\n    as no priest, no lover's cult\n    could grant madness;\n    the wine that entered her throat\n    with the touch of the mountain rocks\n    was white, intoxicant:\n    she, the chaste,\n    was betrayed by the glint\n    of light on the hills,\n    the granite splinter of rocks,\n    the touch of the stone\n    where heat melts\n    toward the shadow-side of the rocks.\n\n\n\n\nEGYPT\n\n(TO E. A. POE)\n\n\n    Egypt had cheated us,\n    for Egypt took\n    through guile and craft\n    our treasure and our hope,\n    Egypt had maimed us,\n    offered dream for life,\n    an opiate for a kiss,\n    and death for both.\n\n    White poison flower we loved\n    and the black spike\n    of an ungarnered bush--\n    (a spice--or without taste--\n    we wondered--then we asked\n    others to take and sip\n    and watched their death)\n    Egypt we loved, though hate\n    should have withheld our touch.\n\n    Egypt had given us knowledge,\n    and we took, blindly,\n    through want of heart,\n    what Egypt brought;\n    knowing all poison,\n    what was that or this,\n    more or less perilous,\n    than this or that.\n\n    We pray you, Egypt,\n    by what perverse fate,\n    has poison brought with knowledge,\n    given us this--\n    not days of trance,\n    shadow, fore-doom of death,\n    but passionate grave thought,\n    belief enhanced,\n    ritual returned and magic;\n\n    Even in the uttermost black pit\n    of the forbidden knowledge,\n    wisdom's glance,\n    the grey eyes following\n    in the mid-most desert--\n    great shaft of rose,\n    fire shed across our path,\n    upon the face grown grey, a light,\n    Hellas re-born from death.\n\n\n\n\nHELIOS\n\n\n    _Helios makes all things right:--\n    night brands and chokes\n    as if destruction broke\n    over furze and stone and crop\n    of myrtle-shoot and field-wort,\n    destroyed with flakes of iron,\n    the bracken-stems,\n    where tender roots were sown,\n    blight, chaff and waste\n    of darkness to choke and drown._\n\n    _A curious god to find,\n    yet in the end faithful;\n    bitter, the Kyprian's feet--\n    ah flecks of whited clay,\n    great hero, vaunted lord--\n    ah petal, dust and wind-fall\n    on the ground--queen awaiting queen._\n\n    _Better the weight, they tell,\n    the helmet's beaten shell,\n    Athene's riven steel,\n    caught over the white skull,\n    Athene sets to heal\n    the few who merit it._\n\n    _Yet even then, what help,\n    should he not turn and note\n    the height of forehead and the mark of conquest,\n    draw near and try the helmet;\n    to left--reset the crown\n    Athene weighted down,\n    or break with a light touch\n    mayhap the steel set to protect;\n    to slay or heal._\n\n    _A treacherous god, they say,\n    yet who would wait to test\n    justice or worth or right,\n    when through a fetid night\n    is wafted faint and nearer--\n    then straight as point of steel\n    to one who courts swift death,\n    scent of Hesperidean orange-spray._\n\n\n\n\nPRAYER\n\n\n    White, O white face--\n    from disenchanted days\n    wither alike dark rose\n    and fiery bays:\n    no gift within our hands,\n    nor strength to praise,\n    only defeat and silence;\n    though we lift hands, disenchanted,\n    of small strength, nor raise\n    branch of the laurel\n    or the light of torch,\n    but fold the garment\n    on the riven locks,\n    yet hear, all-merciful, and touch\n    the fore-head, dim, unlit of pride and thought,\n    Mistress--be near!\n    Give back the glamour to our will,\n    the thought; give back the tool,\n    the chisel; once we wrought\n    things not unworthy,\n    sandal and steel-clasp;\n    silver and steel, the coat\n    with white leaf-pattern\n    at the arm and throat:\n    silver and metal, hammered for the ridge\n    of shield and helmet-rim;\n    white silver with the dark hammered in,\n    belt, staff and magic spear-shaft\n    with the gilt spark at the point and hilt.\n\n_Printed in England at the Pelican Press, 2 Carmelite Street, London,\nE.C._\n\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | Transcriber's Notes                                          |\n  |                                                              |\n  | Page 42: though amended to through (\"through fire I see      |\n  | it, ...\")                                                    |\n  |                                                              |\n  | Hyphenation has generally been standardized. However, when a |\n  | word appears hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number of  |\n  | times, both versions have been retained (forehead/           |\n  | fore-head).                                                  |\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+","title":"Hymen","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":7206}