{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64783/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64783","id":"gutenberg_64783","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64783","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 20th century","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels"],"text":"_MORTAL SUMMER_\n\n\n\n\n  MORTAL\n  SUMMER\n\n  _by_\n  Mark Van Doren\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  The Prairie Press\n  IOWA CITY\n\n\n\n\n_Copyright 1953 by Mark Van Doren_\n\n_Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\nMORTAL SUMMER\n\n\n\n\n  I\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n  The cave they slept in, halfway down Olympus\n  On the eastern slope, toward Asia, whence the archangels\n  Even then were coming--even then\n  Bright Michael, and tall Gabriel, and the dark-faced\n  Raphael, healer of men\u2019s wounds, were flying,\n  Flying toward the ship all ten would take--\n  The cave they slept in sparkled as their eyelids\n  Opened; burned as they rose and stood; hummed\n  And trembled as the seven, the beautiful gods\n  Gazed at each other, wonderful again.\n  The sweet sleep of centuries was over,\n  If only as in dream; if only a mortal\n  Summer woke them out of endless death.\n\n  The grey eyes of Athene, flashing slowly,\n  Demanded of Hermes more than he could tell.\n\n  \u201cIt was not I that roused you.\u201d Hermes pondered,\n  Tightening his sandals. \u201cAll at once,\n  And equally, we woke. Apollo there--\u201d\n  The musical man-slayer listened and frowned--\n  \u201cAnd Ares, and foam-loving Aphrodite\n  Yawned at the very instant Artemis did,\n  With me, and swart Hephaestus.\u201d The lame smith,\n  Stroking his leather apron, blinked at the others,\n  Worshipful of brilliance. Even in Ares,\n  Scowling, and more quietly in her\n  The huntress, whose green robe the animals knew,\n  He found it; and of course in Aphrodite,\n  Wife to him once, he found it, a relentless\n  Laughter filling her eyes and her gold limbs.\n  \u201cIt was not I,\u201d said Hermes.\n                              Thunder sounded,\n  Weakly and far away. And yet no distance\n  Wrapped it. It was here in the lit cavern:\n  Here, or nowhere. And the trembling seven\n  Turned to the rock that sealed a deeper room.\n  There Zeus, there Hera sat, the feasted prisoners\n  Of a still greater person, one who changed\n  The world while there they mourned, remembering Ida.\n  Some day they too would sleep, but now weak thunder\n  Witnessed their remnant glory; which appalled\n  As ever the proud seven, until Hermes\n  Listened and leaned, then spoke.\n                                  \u201cIt was the king\n  Our father. He has willed that we should wander,\n  Even as in a dream, and be the gods\n  Of strangers. Somewhere west of the ocean stream\n  He sends us, to a circle of small hills--\n  Come, for I see the place!\u201d\n                              That suffered thunder\n  Sounded again, agreeing; and they went.\n  Out of the cave they poured, into spring sun\n  Whose warmth they yet increased, for the falling light\n  Was less than theirs was, moving as they moved.\n  No soldier and no shepherd, climbing here,\n  Would have discovered deity. The brambles\n  Hid as they ever had this stony hole\n  Whence seven had been wakened, and where still,\n  Enormous in dark chains, their parents wept.\n\n  Invisible to suns, the seven gathered\n  Round a white rock and gazed. The sea was there,\n  The Aegean, and a ship without a sail\n  Plied southward, trailing smoke; at which Hephaestus\n  Squinted. Then he slapped his thigh and smiled,\n  And waved for six to follow as down world\n  He leapt.\n            They landed, all of them, as lightly\n  As a fair flock of gulls upon the prow\n  Of the tramp _Jonathan B. Travis_, bound\n  Tomorrow for Gibraltar, then northwest,\n  Northwest, both night and day, till the ocean stream\n  Was conquered. Not a god had ever gone there,\n  Not one of these high seven, in the old\n  Dark sail time. Now, invisible to waves,\n  To men and birds, they watched twelve grimy sailors\n  Washing their clothes on deck; and wondered still\n  At the two wakes behind them, foam and funnel.\n\n  But who were these arriving, these gaunt three\n  On giant wings that folded as they fell\n  And staggered, then stood upright? Even now\n  Michael had dropped among them, with his archangel\n  Brethren, bony Gabriel and lank Raphael.\n  From nearer Asia, lonely a long while,\n  They had come flying, sick of the desert silence,\n  Sick of the centuries through which no lord,\n  No king of the host, had blessed them with command.\n  As orphaned eagles, missing their ancient\u2019s cry,\n  They had come hither, hopeful of these seven,\n  Hopeful of noble company, of new act.\n  Now on the prow they gathered, and no sailor\n  Saw them; but Apollo did, and Artemis--\n  Fingering their bows--as Hermes reared\n  On tiptoe, smiling welcome. Aphrodite,\n  Slipping to lee of Ares, feigned a fear\n  More beautiful than truth was; while Hephaestus,\n  Curious, near-sighted, fingered those wing-joints\n  Athene only studied where she stood.\n\n  \u201cWhoever you are,\u201d said Hermes, \u201cand whatever--\n  Pardon this--you were, sail now as we do,\n  And be the gods of strangers far to west.\n  If only as in dream the vessel draws us,\n  Zeus our sire consenting. Your own sire--\u201d\n  But the three stared so sadly over the waves\n  That Hermes paused, and beckoning to Gabriel\n  Whispered with him alone while dolphins played\n  As lambs do on dry land, and fishes scattered.\n\n  Alone to Hermes, while the dolphins heaved\n  Grey backs above green water, Gabriel murmured:\n  \u201cYour sire. We had one too. And have Him still,\n  Though silent. It is listening for his thunder\n  That leans us. He is busy with new folk,\n  New, humble folk he speaks to in a low voice.\n  We have not learned that language--humble words,\n  With never death or danger in the message.\n  A star stood still above a stable once,\n  And a weak infant wept. And there He left us.\u201d\n  \u201cOur sire,\u201d said Hermes, \u201c--he too sleeps away\n  Our centuries. We have the selfsame fortune.\n  Sail westward with us then.\u201d And Gabriel nodded.\n\n  The steel that sliced the water swung at length,\n  And in three days they nosed between the Pillars;\n  Past which--and the ten all shuddered--monsters once\n  Made chaos of the world\u2019s end. But no fangs\n  Closed over the black prow, and mile on mile\n  Slid under them, familiar as a meadow\n  To the small men they watched amid the smoke.\n  Mile on mile, by hundreds and by thousands,\n  The Atlantic sloped away. Then lands and harbors,\n  And a deep whistle groaning.\n                              \u201cNow!\u201d said Hermes,\n  \u201cNow!\u201d So nine to one they lifted wing,\n  Or no-wing like their leader, and went on,\n  High over chimneys and chill rivers, north\n  By west till it was there--the rounded valley,\n  Green with new spring, where cattle bawled in barns\n  And people, patient, waited for hot June.\n\n\n\n\n  II\n\n\n  Daniel was mending fence, for it was May,\n  And early rains had painted the drear pastures.\n  He walked, testing the wire, and wished again\n  For his old pipe. He missed it, and grew moody.\n  Berrien would never notice it on the shelf;\n  Berrien would never bring it. A good wife,\n  But scornful of the comforts. A good woman,\n  Who never guessed the outrage he had done her.\n  New Year\u2019s Eve, and Dora. He remembered--\n  And set his jaw, missing the pipe stem there.\n  He pulled at a slack strand of the barbed wire,\n  And snagged himself--here, in the palm of his hand.\n  A little blood came which he wiped away.\n  He did miss that tobacco. And he did,\n  He did loathe simple Dora--warm and simple,\n  Who with her dark head nodding close to his,\n  On New Year\u2019s Eve, had done with him this outrage.\n  He would forget her if he could; and old\n  Darius, her profane, her grizzled father.\n  So proud of her he was, and kept so neat\n  The mountain shack they lived in, he and his one\n  Sweet chick he swore was safe as in State\u2019s prison.\n  Daniel counted the months. Was the child showing?\n  Darius--did he guess? And Doctor Smith--\n  Would she have gone to him? Daniel looked off,\n  Unmindful of the beautiful May morning.\n  Bruce Hanna, that poor boy. Was he suspicious?\n  He had been born for Dora, she for him;\n  And then last New Year\u2019s Eve, when the sleigh bells rang\n  So slyly, writing ruin in cold air!\n  Daniel, wiping his hand again, looked back\n  At the wild barb that bit him.\n                                Who was that?\n  For a quizzical, small stranger stood by the fence,\n  Feeling its rust, its toughness. He was swarthy\n  And lame, and had bright eyes. And in his hand\n  A pipe--for all the township Daniel\u2019s own!\n\n  \u201cHere, have you need of this? I\u2019m on my way\n  Northeast awhile, repairing peoples\u2019 ranges.\n  It gave itself to me, but you can have it.\u201d\n\n  Then he was gone, unless he walked and waved--\n  For someone did--Daniel could not distinguish--\n  From the far border of the field. The small\n  Stranger was gone, and all that Daniel held\n  Was a filled pipe bowl, comforting his palm.\n\n  He must ask Berrien, he said at noon,\n  If a lame dwarf had come to mend the cook stove.\n  He must ask Berrien, who wouldn\u2019t listen,\n  How a man\u2019s pipe could vanish from its shelf.\n  For so it had, into his very pocket.\n\n  \u201cBerrien!\u201d he called. But she was busy\n  With her own bother.\n                      \u201cDaniel, a woman\u2019s here--\n  Wants to stay and board all summer--wants\n  To rest. A theater woman. I\u2019ve said no,\n  But maybe--\u201d\n              Who was the gold one, listening there\n  And smiling? Looking over Berrien\u2019s shoulder\n  And lighting the front room with little smiles?\n  A faded gold one, well beyond her prime,\n  But the true substance, glistening. Berrien frowned\n  And her head shook. But Daniel, fascinated,\n  Said he would think, would figure.\n                                    In the end\n  She stayed, the theater woman; and that night\n  Daniel had dreams of her. She came to his bed\n  In beauty; stood beside him and said \u201cDora.\u201d\n  How could she know of Dora? It was a dream,\n  Yet how could she know so much? And how had she fathomed,\n  All in one day, the longing he denied?\n  There was no loathing. Anywhere in his heart--\n  That sweetened as he said it--there was no hate\n  For Dora, whom he thought he saw there too,\n  Standing beside the theater woman and weeping,\n  And holding her simple hands out so he could say:\n  \u201cTomorrow, little sweetheart half my years,\n  Tomorrow I will tell the world about us.\n  You must be mine to keep. I have been cruel;\n  I have been absent, darling, from your pain.\n  Tomorrow I will put my two arms round you,\n  And bear if I can the--pleasure.\u201d\n                                    Then he woke,\n  And none but Berrien watched him in the room--\n  Berrien, who ever after watched him,\n  Night and day detesting this pale witch\n  Who came and went and charmed him.\n                                    So she thought,\n  Said Daniel, never answering her eyes.\n  For him there were no hours now save those dark ones\n  When the pair came. At midnight they would be there,\n  Faithful as moths; and every sunny morning,\n  Starting from his pillow, he would mutter:\n  \u201cTomorrow is today. Then I must go\n  To Dora, I must tell her.\u201d Yet he waited\n  Always upon another secret midnight;\n  And witnessed every noon how the gold woman,\n  Smiling her light smile, seemed not to know\n  Of Dora; was no witch at all; was no one.\n\n\n\n\n  III\n\n\n  Meanwhile a little mountain house was murmurous\n  With his own name--evil, could he but hear it.\n  Darius had discovered his sweet daughter\u2019s\n  Swelling, and had pressed her for the cause;\n  And yesterday, in terror, Dora yielded.\n  Now Bruce was there, with the old badger watching\n  How sick one word could make him. So it was spoken--\n  \u201cDaniel.\u201d And the kill was on.\n                                A soldier,\n  Footing it home from Canada, stood by\n  With a gourd dipper, dripping as he drank.\n  He listened, lounging, and his bushy eyes\n  Burned at the accusation. When Bruce faltered--\n  And he did falter, for his hate of Daniel,\n  Less than the sore so sudden in his breast,\n  So hopeless, so beyond all thought of cure,\n  Was a weak thing at first--this brawny witness\n  Shone like a savior in the old one\u2019s eyes,\n  The little old one, dancing in his fury\n  As he repeated \u201cDaniel\u201d; and made doubly\n  Sure that Dora\u2019s corner room was bolted.\n  Afterwards, remembering how the knuckled\n  Soldier had spat curses on that name,\n  \u201cDaniel,\u201d and had spun a scheme for them--\n  Perfection, he declared it, of revenge--\n  Darius called him blessed. \u201cYou\u2019d have failed me,\n  Bruce, you would have wobbled like a calf\n  And licked this devil\u2019s hand, but for that sergeant.\n  Who sent him here, I wonder?\u201d\n                                \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d\n  Said Bruce, his mind on Dora\u2019s room. \u201cIs she--\u201d\n  \u201cYes, she\u2019s in there. And stays there till we\u2019ve finished.\n  When do we go and do it? Think of that--\n  Think only of that thing, my boy, that needful\n  Thing.\u201d Darius nudged him, and they dropped\n  Their voices.\n                Dora, listening, heard little,\n  Crouched by her door. Bruce--he mustn\u2019t do it.\n  Bruce--he was the only thing she wanted\n  In the poor world. A poor one too for Daniel;\n  But she shut out the thought. Bruce mustn\u2019t do it,\n  Whatever it was. She beat on the thick wood\n  And cried to him; but only heard Darius\n  Coaxing him outdoors; then only silence.\n\n  \u201cWhen shall it be, my boy? What dark of the moon\n  Does best for our good purpose--damn his bones!\n  Two shotguns--that\u2019s enough--then home, then here--\n  That\u2019s it, and neither knows of it next day.\n  We\u2019ll even shed a hot tear, being told!\n  When do we do it, boy?\u201d\n                          But Bruce was slow:\n  Angry and sick, but slow. And once when Dora\n  Found him, deep in the woods between their cabins,\n  He almost lost his purpose as she held him,\n  Wetting his face with tears.\n                              \u201cListen!\u201d she whispered.\n  \u201cI have been down to Doctor, and his new nurse\n  Knows--I can\u2019t guess how--knows everything.\n  A beautiful, tall woman, and her friend\n  The teacher--she is like her. Colder, though,\n  With different, with grey eyes. The new nurse says--\u201d\n  \u201cWhat, Dora, what does she say?\u201d\n                                  \u201cOh, no, I can\u2019t--\n  I\u2019ll never, never tell you.\u201d\n                              As she ran\n  He followed, farther into the still woods;\n  Then stopped as she did, startled. For those two--\n  It must be those two new ones, those tall women--\n  Pondered the carcass of a fawn, a spotted\n  Three-months fawn that dogs had torn at the throat.\n\n  It was the nurse that knelt, lifting brown eyes\n  In sorrow, scarcely knowing Dora there.\n  The other one bent down to her.\n                                  \u201cStand up.\n  They both are here. The boy, too.\u201d\n                                    Level voiced,\n  The teacher touched her friend\u2019s hair.\n                                        \u201cStand up, stand up.\n  The fawn is dead. These others--\u201d\n                                    \u201cYes, I know.\n  I heard, I saw them. But consider death.\n  Consider this young death awhile, and say--\n  But softly--of what it is the paradigm.\n  Do not disdain one death, one single death;\n  And when we can, prevent.\u201d\n                            The grey eyes cooled,\n  Consenting. So the sorrowful one arose.\n  \u201cCome here,\u201d she said to Dora, and to Bruce\n  Behind her. \u201cWe were walking in the woods,\n  My visitor and I; we saw this sight.\u201d\n\n  But Bruce and Dora stared at only her,\n  So beautiful, so tall, and at the other\n  Strange one by her side.\n                          \u201cWe had been talking,\n  Children, of you two. No matter if Daniel\n  Loves you, little girl of the dark eyes--\u201d\n\n  \u201cHe doesn\u2019t!\u201d Dora shuddered. \u201cIf he could,\n  He\u2019d have it that I never lived on earth.\n  He hates it, having to remember me.\n  And that\u2019s all right. I want it so. But Bruce--\u201d\n\n  \u201cWill be, my dear, the father of your--listen,\n  Listen! You start away.\u201d\n                          For both had broken\n  Breath, as if with running, and only the hands\n  Of the grey-eyed, the firm one, held them there.\n  \u201cI mean,\u201d and the tall beautiful one blinked,\n  Twitching the green selvage of her skirt,\n  \u201cThe foster father. He is young for that;\n  Yet he is to be, my child, the chosen one\n  Who saves you, and saves it--the life you carry.\n  Your husband. Nothing less. And not in dream.\u201d\n\n  Bruce turned his head in fear that old Darius\n  Listened--was it he among the hemlocks,\n  Stepping so lightly?\n                      But the foliage opened\n  For a fair, smiling face, and the broad shoulders,\n  Burdened with straps, of one who tramped these hills\n  By summer, following signs. A brilliance round him,\n  Caused by no sun, for none came through the branches,\n  Struck silence from all four; until the nurse,\n  Nodding as if she knew him, said: \u201cDue north,\n  Pilgrim, is there. Your compass--have you lost it?\n  Well, north is that way\u201d--pointing--\u201cbut stand here\n  In patience for some seconds; then we two\n  Will guide you back to town for better bearing.\n  Can you be patient?\u201d\n                      \u201cThank you, yes.\u201d The giant\n  Smiled at her once again.\n                            \u201cYou see, my small one,\n  Bruce there by your side would break and run,\n  Fearing his sweet fate. He even wonders\n  Whether some partner, deep in another plan,\n  Listens and chides him.\u201d\n                          Staring, the boy blushed.\n  Then, fearful, he looked up and met her eyes,\n  The nurse\u2019s distant eyes, that fixed him gently.\n  \u201cMy friend here--she will tell you more than I can\n  Of the black folly born of feud. Attend her.\u201d\n\n  But the still teacher only parted wide\n  Her capable cool lids, and let him see\n  Agreement flash between them.\n                                \u201cSomeone\u2019s death\u201d--\n  She forced the words at last--\u201cis cheap to buy.\n  A minute of man\u2019s time, and breathing stops.\n  The cost is in the echo; for to cease\n  Makes sound. So you will hear it coming home,\n  The rumor of that death. My friend is right.\n  Marry the maiden.\u201d\n                    But the words came strangely,\n  Out of some older earth, and even she\n  The speaker knew their failure; for she frowned.\n  Bruce turned his head again, fearing the hemlock\n  Heard. Yet no one listened there; no fourth one\n  Followed this lofty fellow who in patience\n  Folded his arms and smiled--as if he too\n  Had knowledge, and agreed with the grey eyes.\n  As Dora did, said Bruce. And yet Darius--\n  He paled at the grim image, and remembered,\n  Suddenly, that soldier; whose disgust\n  If the dear purpose foundered was itself\n  A death, along with Dora\u2019s yesterday.\n  Daniel. Who but Daniel was the father\n  Of a whole world\u2019s confusion?\n                                And his anger,\n  Running before him, took him from this place,\n  This glade where three, left thoughtful, were as figures\n  Molded of shadow. Dora was gone with Bruce,\n  Gasping and crying \u201cWait!\u201d\n                            But the three tall ones\n  Listened to nothing human. Hermes came.\n\n\n\n\n  IV\n\n\n  Hermes came, and hailing his three peers,\n  Spoke Aphrodite\u2019s name; whose beautiful laughter\n  Answered as she glistened in their midst--\n  No woman now, but goddess. So Hephaestus\n  Hove into their view, and all of the others,\n  Manifest together. This was where,\n  In tulip and oak shade, they pleased to meet,\n  To sit sometimes and say how the world went,\n  Mortal and immortal.\n                      \u201cYou of the golden\n  Shoulders,\u201d Hermes said, \u201cbring dreams to one\n  Who lived in peace without them.\u201d\n                                    \u201cLived in hate,\n  In loathing of those very limbs he fondled--\n  Poor, poor limbs, so lonely!\u201d And her insolent\n  Laughter shook the listening green leaves.\n  \u201cYet he would have forgotten, and his only\n  Danger been from Ares\u201d--who was there,\n  Swelling his thick chest, as Hermes spoke--\n  \u201cFrom the two minions, old and young, of Ares.\n  Such danger can dissolve, for it is wind\n  And fury; but the damage that you do,\n  Arrogant bright daughter of the dolphins,\n  Is endless as waves are, or serpent segments\n  The impotent keen knife divides. Have mercy,\n  Goddess.\u201d And he waited. But her lips,\n  Unmoving, only teased him; and tormented\n  Artemis.\n          \u201cThe man was free of longing,\n  And the dark maid of him,\u201d the huntress said,\n  \u201cTill this one wantoned, wooing him with dreams.\n  Then Ares--common soldier--fanned the fire\n  In those you call his minions.\u201d Hermes nodded.\n  \u201cAnd so our plan\u2019s perplexed before it ripens.\n  Athene, Michael--tell them how we stood,\n  Just here, and heard the boy refuse his function.\u201d\n\n  But it was known among them even then,\n  And so no witness needed. Aphrodite,\n  Secure in beauty\u2019s pride, tilted her head\n  To hear, intending mockery of the tale.\n  But the wise one withheld it, and majestic\n  Michael only folded his broad wings\n  As Gabriel did, as Raphael.\n                              Yet that last one,\n  Mournful of face and long, had ears for Artemis,\n  Nurse to all things aborning, as she mused:\n\n  \u201cThe young one when he comes--in what men call\n  The fall of their brief year--the roofless infant--\n  It was for him we planned. And still we do--\u201d\n  She dared the glittering goddess--\u201cstill we seek\n  Safe birth for the small mother, and for him\n  The wailing, the unwanted.\u201d\n                              Crooked Hephaestus,\n  Clearing his mild throat, remarked in modesty:\n  \u201cThe man works well and silently. He loves,\n  In solitude, the comfort of my fire.\n  And so in a bowl I brought it. As for her--\n  He will not have her near him. I was by;\n  I read his thoughts of this.\u201d\n                                \u201cAbsurd contriver!\n  Artisan of the bellows! Zeus\u2019s butt!\n  As ever, you know nothing.\u201d Aphrodite\n  Sparkled with rage, reviling him. \u201cYou saw\n  By daylight, and at labor in the field\n  One whom that very night I made my slave.\n  Off to your anvil, ass!\u201d\n                          But Hermes calmed\n  Their quarrel, lifting his either hand in grace.\n  \u201cWithout our father\u2019s thunder we are fools\n  And children. Who decides when lesser gods,\n  When angels disagree? Authority absent,\n  Silence--a silver silence--that is best.\u201d\n  And like a song they heard it, and they wondered,\n  Measuring its notes. Until Apollo,\n  Lord of the muses, laughed.\n                              \u201cYou heard me humming.\n  All to myself I sang it--with sealed lips.\u201d\n\n  \u201cWhat did you sing?\u201d said Hermes.\n                                    \u201cNothing, nothing.\n  My sisters round the world--a sweet wind brought me,\n  Sleepily, this air.\u201d\n                      He hummed again,\n  And this time closed his eyes. \u201cPerhaps I see,\u201d\n  He said, \u201csome silver moment coming soon--\n  Necessity for music. But not now.\u201d\n\n  Nor could those other nine foresee the summer.\n  Already, in mid June, high long days\n  Hovered the world, and change, like ripening fruit,\n  Hung ever, ever plainer. Yet no man,\n  No god distinguished more in this green time\n  Than purposes that crossed; and ever tighter.\n  In Daniel\u2019s house the woman who was resting--\n  Daily, in scorn, Berrien spoke the word--\n  Still did not spare the beautiful dream body\n  She sent to him by dark, when Dora too\n  Lived by his side and loved him: standing there\n  In the shed radiance of one who smiled\n  And smiled, and burned his reticence away.\n  For he would go to Dora--come July,\n  Said Daniel, lying afterwards and listening\n  As night died between him and the windows,\n  He would go there, he would, and say it all;\n  He would have Dora, small in his long arms,\n  Forever. Yet the sweetness of this thought\n  Exhausted him, and hollowed his wild eyes,\n  So that he never went.\n                        And had he gone,\n  What Dora would have seen him come and shivered?\n  One whom as strong a dream--if it was a dream--\n  Estranged. It was of having, yet not having,\n  Bruce for her brave husband. For he mustn\u2019t--\n  He mustn\u2019t, she said nightly, shutting away\n  The vision--Bruce must never let it be.\n  The nurse--he mustn\u2019t listen. Yet if he did--\n  And then she wept.\n                    Darius in the morning,\n  Seeing her tears, thought only of his purpose.\n  He should conceal it better. She was afraid,\n  Was frantic, she might go somewhere and tell.\n  That boy--he was so hard to keep in anger.\n  He faltered, and he wilted; he was a fool.\n  That boy, the center of confusion\u2019s cross,\n  For still he hated Daniel, still with Darius\n  Plotted the loud death; yet loved all day,\n  All night the dream of lying in clear peace\n  Forever, in dear confidence, with Dora;\n  That boy was whom the strangers in this valley\n  Watched while the moments went; while June decayed;\n  While middle summer dozed; and no leaves fell.\n\n\n\n\n  V\n\n\n  A hundred people coming to the barn dance,\n  The barn dance at MacPherson\u2019s, saw the full moon.\n  It hung there like a lantern in the low east,\n  Enormous and blood red, and stationary.\n  Daniel came, and Berrien, with that woman--\n  So fair, she seemed unnatural--between them.\n  She must have made them bring her, someone said;\n  And laughed.\n              But no one laughed when Dora came.\n  She was so pitiful in her loose coat,\n  Concealing, healing nothing. Would she dance?\n  If only with Bruce Hanna, would she dance?\n  Too late for it, some whispered; and some blamed\n  The silly boy. To let her show like that!\n  The nurse, the doctor\u2019s nurse, and her tall friend\n  The teacher--no one dreamed those two, those two--\n  They stood by their grand selves, and no one saw\n  How Bruce, how Dora lived but in their glances.\n\n  Then all the strangers. When the music started,\n  Who but a giant--handsome, with tow hair--\n  Bowed to the grand ones? And to more\n  Beyond them? For a pair of unknown farmers,\n  Lanky and cave-eyed, leaned bony shoulders\n  Where a great upright shaded the rude floor.\n  From the next valley, maybe, like this lame\n  Pedlar; like the soldier; like that lightfoot\n  Traveller, the one with pointed ears,\n  The one with cropped hair and a twisted staff,\n  Who wandered in the crowd, watching and watched.\n  The shepherd of the strangers? Yet no word\n  Between them, and no look, Darius said--\n  Darius, who had eyes for everything;\n  And ears, when music started.\n                                \u201cOne more couple!\n  One more couple!\u201d Glendy the clear-caller\n  Shouted while harmonicas, like locusts,\n  Shrilled, and while Young Gus tuned his guitar.\n  \u201cOne more couple!\u201d\n                    Here they came.\n                                    \u201cJoin hands\n  And circle left!\u201d\n                    Darius heard the words\n  Above him, in the corner where by Glendy\n  And the harmonicas he tapped the floor.\n  His was the curious, the musicians\u2019 corner,\n  Whence he could see how Dora sat and trembled,\n  Wondering what next--why she was here.\n  \u201cThe dog!\u201d he growled, catching on Daniel\u2019s face,\n  In a far corner, hunger and indifference\n  Fighting. Hunger--damn him--for my child,\n  My child, Darius said, whom he has changed;\n  And smothering this, the smoke of a pretence\n  That nothing here was wrong, nothing at all.\n  The soldier had come back. Darius saw him.\n  Red-eyed, drinking water by a droplight,\n  And his own conscience hurt him. Daniel lived.\n  If Bruce could only raise his eyes a little--\n  But they were hangdog, or were fixed in fear\n  On those two stranger women. Why in fear?\n\n  The music, though.\n                    \u201cSwing your corner lady!\u201d\n  Darius, rocking gently on his heels,\n  Was lost again in that, and in the wild\n  Mouth organs, going mournful overhead.\n  \u201cFirst two gents cross over!\u201d In his thought\n  He crossed; he took that partner by the hand;\n  He swung her, swung her, swung her, you know where.\n  He promenaded, proudly, and he clapped\n  His palms, that sweated bravely. Then the swinging\n  Ceased. The set was over. And he sang:\n  \u201cGood boy, Gus! That was calling, old man Glendy!\u201d\n  They winked at him, wiping their foreheads off;\n  Then soon another set. And still he listened\n  And watched, and still he saw how Dora sat,\n  Trembling, and never danced.\n                              But once the soldier,\n  Slouching to her side, made mockery signs\n  Suggesting that she stand. Darius started\n  In anger; then he stopped, for Bruce was up,\n  Explaining--yet avoiding the brute stare;\n  And Daniel, in his corner, clenched both fists.\n  Even the strangers knew, for one came over--\n  The one with such a neat head on his body,\n  And the curled stick--as if to beat away\n  Wild boars escaped here. That was good, was good,\n  Darius said; then listened as the music\n  Whispered again.\n                  Whispered.\n                            For the tune\n  Had altered. Where was Glendy? Who was this\n  Where Glendy had been standing? And what ailed,\n  What softened so the clamor of the mouth harps?\n\n  \u201cOne more couple!\u201d\n                    Who was the intruder,\n  Calling in so sweet, so low a voice,\n  Strange orders? Yet not strange; for the hot crowd,\n  Heedless of any difference, swirled on,\n  Loving its evolutions, and no head\n  Turned hither.\n                \u201cTake your Dora by the hand--\u201d\n  Darius, looking up, saw how the silver\n  Light of the full moon, mature at zenith,\n  Fell on the singer. Through one gable window\n  It fell, and on no head but his, the silvery\n  Singer. He was slender, he was strange;\n  And the high moon--it burned for none but him.\n\n  \u201cWhere\u2019s Glendy, Gus?\u201d\n                        \u201cTook sick.\u201d\n                                    The loud guitar,\n  Hesitating, rallied and persevered;\n  But modified its note to a new sweetness,\n  A low, a far-off sweetness, as Gus looked,\n  Listened, and looked again at the mysterious\n  Caller on whose mouth the full moon smiled.\n\n        Take your Dora by the hand,\n        Your little Dora, grown so large.\n        By another she was manned,\n        But she is now your loving charge.\n\n        Mercy marries you, my boy,\n        And mercy--oh, it is unjust.\n        But it was born of truth and joy,\n        And lives with misery if it must.\n\n  Darius, and then Daniel, comprehending,\n  Stared at a hundred dancers who did not.\n  Heedless of any change, they stamped and swung,\n  Those hundred, as if Glendy still were here--\n  Old Glendy, whose thin throat still mastered them.\n  Yet Daniel saw how Dora, dropping her eyes,\n  Sat silent, deathly silent; and how Bruce,\n  Guardian to her, looked only down--\n  Looked everywhere save at the singer, singing:\n\n        Take your Dora by the hand.\n        There is life within her waist.\n        And there is woe, unless you stand\n        And love with bravery is graced.\n\n        So all the world will know her wed,\n        And all the people call it yours--\n        The life within her, small and red;\n        And wrathful, were it none but hers.\n\n        With you beside her all is well.\n        She will be tended in her time.\n        There is more that I could tell,\n        But Glendy now resumes the rhyme.\n\n  \u201cCircle four!\u201d\n                Darius, and then Daniel,\n  Dazed, regarded Glendy once again.\n  The moonlit one was gone, and only these\n  Had seen him--these and Dora, and dumb Bruce.\n  And all of the nine strangers. For they too\n  Had listened; bending their bodies, they had weighed,\n  Had witnessed every word as it arrived;\n  Had watched the boy\u2019s confusion; then the girl\u2019s;\n  Then both together, as if woe had wed\n  Already the poor lovers.\n                          \u201cNelly Gray!\u201d\n  The hundred dancers, heedless, went right on;\n  And only Berrien\u2019s boarder, the gold woman\n  Who stood so close by Daniel--only that one\n  Kindled. Then she blazed, and Daniel, blushing,\n  Knew she had found his thought.\n                                  So I have lost her--\n  This was his thought--have lost her. Then my love\n  Must die, and no man know it. He was true,\n  That singer. It is not my life she carries--\n  Dora, who was mine for that cold minute;\n  Dora, whom I never can forget.\n\n  The eyes of the theater woman burned so fiercely,\n  Punishing his own, that Daniel shook.\n  How could she guess his trouble? Only in dreams\n  She knew it, only in dreams, when Dora came.\n  Only in darkness. \u201cNow she disapproves,\n  She probes me.\u201d\n                  But the woman looked away,\n  Suddenly, and signalled to the soldier;\n  Who, nodding, went to stand before Darius.\n  Daniel saw him there, gesticulating,\n  With his feet spread, as if he meant to spring,\n  To throttle someone. And Darius blinked.\n  But music and the distance drowned their words.\n\n  And now the tall nurse, bending over Dora,\n  Whispered to her and Bruce; and the boy, rising,\n  Reached for a small hand. The singer had said\n  To take it, and he took it, and pulled up\n  The girl who still was trying to be free,\n  To save him.\n              And the music never stopped.\n  \u201cKiss her if you dare!\u201d cried old man Glendy.\n  And many a dancer did. But neither Bruce\n  Nor Dora, arm in arm, had present ears.\n  They listened still to what the other singer,\n  Gone now as the moon was from the window,\n  Sang and sang again, as if his silvery\n  Face never had faded. Arm in arm\n  They walked among the dancers to the big door;\n  Arm in arm, sleepwalking, they went forth,\n  Under the slant moon, and disappeared.\n\n\n\n\n  VI\n\n\n  Some whispers, like the wake of blowing leaves\n  When a swift body passes west, pursued them.\n  But Daniel never stirred.\n                            Nor old Darius--\n  Neither did he listen as the sergeant\n  Swore, swelling the wrath in his red eyes\n  Till most of him was fire. \u201cFollow him home,\n  The fool. He is forgetting it--the purpose.\n  Tear him free. He softens in her arms\n  To the sick sound of \u2018Father.\u2019\u201d\n                                  But Darius,\n  Lost in the same sound, was thinking softly:\n  \u201cI had not dreamed of this. She will be friended,\n  She will not go alone. He is a good boy,\n  Bruce. I never coupled her with him.\n  It may be in the cards.\u201d Whereat the soldier\n  Left him, spitting disgust.\n                              And Daniel saw\n  How all of the fair strangers followed soon--\n  All of them, as if they were a company.\n  They wouldn\u2019t be, of course. And yet they smiled\n  In the same grave degree, as if some secret\n  Bound them.\n              And he thought the dapper one,\n  Who tapped the sanded floor and twirled his stick,\n  His curlicue of a cane--whatever it was--\n  Communicated thus to the gold woman\n  That she too must away. But she was Daniel\u2019s,\n  Berrien\u2019s; she was not of any company,\n  Wandering, like this one. She had come\n  Alone to them, in May, and she would go--\n  Would go, said Daniel, taking her dream body,\n  Her beautiful dream body, that was his,\n  Was his alone.\n                And suddenly his sadness\n  Doubled. For the singer had left living\n  None of his sweet hope. Dora was gone,\n  A ghost in outer moonlight, a surrendered\n  Sweetness, and he stood there like a dead man,\n  A noble dead man, numbering his loss.\n  Now, multiplied, it smote him. This one too--\n  In fall--he would be losing this one too,\n  In fall. Or even here, while he stood looking,\n  Here, with that lithe one calling from the door.\n  For there he was, the last one to go through,\n  And Daniel thought the signal came again:\n  An elbow\u2019s twitch, a twirl of his live staff,\n  His vine that had the strength to stand alone.\n\n  But she had arms and eyes for only Daniel,\n  Worshiping her now. She seemed as near,\n  He whispered to himself, as lamplight must,\n  At midnight, to poor moths. And yet no brush\n  Of fingers, such as Berrien might have frowned on.\n  Simply her brilliance chained him, simply her arms,\n  Her eyes, took hold of everything in him\n  And hurt it.\n              \u201cSo you let her go,\u201d she said.\n  \u201cYou shadow of a man, you let her go.\n  Those limbs of hers, so beautiful in light,\n  In darkness, and the breast you could have bruised,\n  Crushing it with yours--and yet you would not,\n  For it is white, is small, and precious to you--\n  Derelict! Oh, shameful! What a shadow\n  Falls on you for lover--disobedient\n  Lover of that girl whom still you crave!\u201d\n\n  Did her lips part? Was any of it spoken?\n  Berrien still watched the weary dancers\n  Like one whom nothing moved. Then whence the words?\n  And why? For the gold woman\u2019s only knowledge\n  Was a dream knowledge, drawn to him by night\n  When her own body slept in her own bed.\n  How could she understand? And what untruth\n  Was working in her, making these sweet sounds?\n  Their honey was more false for being heard\n  By him, by only him. That other singer--\n  He had been true. And troubling. But his song\n  Was never to be lost now. Dora was,\n  Forever. And he said it must be so.\n\n  The woman, though. Her arms. And now her eyes,\n  Beating upon him, beautiful, imperious,\n  Not to be contradicted. And her lips.\n  Lest the unparted lips again deliver\n  What was so loud, so terrible--though heard\n  By him, by only him--he spoke of home.\n  Berrien--wasn\u2019t she tired? And Berrien was.\n  So with no words they went.\n                              Some dancers saw them,\n  Picking their way, and winked at one another;\n  Daniel, with that artificial woman;\n  Berrien, with her boarder. What a household!\n  None of them looked happy. Three old-fashioned\n  People going home. The actress, too--\n  An old, old timer, powdered up to kill,\n  And painted. You could see it--Indian summer\n  Everywhere. Yet once a pretty world.\n\n  They could not see how beautiful she was.\n  Only for Daniel was she beautiful,\n  And for those others, strangers here with her,\n  Who from the border of MacPherson\u2019s grove,\n  In their own forms, were watching.\n                                    Hermes leaned\n  Like none but Hermes, graceful as the grass,\n  On a slim sapling, serpent-shaped, and said:\n  \u201cShe flaunts us. Aphrodite is not Ares,\n  She is not schooled in victory and defeat,\n  She is not skilful at surrender--save\n  The lover\u2019s kind. See? She is bent on that.\n  She will not let him go, the farmer there,\n  While any of her poison works in him.\n  Ares, what if some of your new wisdom--\n  You could persuade her, Ares.\u201d\n                                But the sullen\n  Soldier still was sullen, though a god;\n  He would not lift his face as Aphrodite,\n  Smiling at them, catlike, kept her way\n  With Daniel down the road.\n                            \u201cApollo\u2019s song,\u201d\n  Said Hermes, \u201c--it was all we needed then.\u201d\n  He nodded, and the bright musician bowed.\n  \u201cIt was a potent song. The tough old man,\n  The tender young, the farmer in his heart--\n  All four of them were changed. But now you see--\u201d\n  He pointed, and they looked where Aphrodite,\n  Dimming with her companions down the highway,\n  Walked as a mortal would; though still they knew\n  The goddess by a smile that lingered somewhere,\n  Mingling as the moon did with the tops\n  Of trees, and scenting midnight with its malice.\n  Artemis, more angry than the rest,\n  More like the moon, declining now so clear,\n  So cold, beyond the body of this grove,\n  Remembered the dead fawn. \u201cSo with that child,\u201d\n  She brooded. \u201cIf the farmer man confesses,\n  Nothing but grief will grow where you and I--\u201d\n  She took Athene\u2019s hand--\u201chave wisely tilled\n  And planted. Never then will the boy serve,\n  With loving care, my cause--the cause of the world,\n  Of the newborn things whose nurture saves the world.\n  The farmer would have let the maiden go--\n  Sadly, yet Apollo made it sure.\n  Or so we said who listened. Yet that one,\n  That laughing one, pursues him now and sings,\n  And sings--oh, what low song, what tale of the flesh,\n  What burden that may topple his intention?\n  Hephaestus, our contriver, you could seal\n  His ears, his sleeping eyelids, if you would;\n  Even tonight you could.\u201d\n                          Hephaestus, pacing\n  Oddly the smooth floor, rested his leg,\n  The shortened leg Zeus long ago had crippled.\n  \u201cThe farmer--he works well, and loves the fire\n  I gave him. Let him be.\u201d\n                          But none of them saw\n  His meaning, if he had one. He was lame\n  And foolish, and he muttered as he walked,\n  And turned and walked again, counting the steps\n  Between two oaks that limited his way.\n  The great angels watched him with their wings\n  Folded. Standing deeper in the shade,\n  They waited with the others while the moon\n  Sloped to its rest, the music having wearied\n  And stopped, and all the dancers wandered home.\n\n\n\n\n  VII\n\n\n  \u201cDora, do you take Bruce for your husband,\n  To cherish him, for better or for worse?\u201d\n  The justice of the peace, Tobias Hapgood,\n  Peered over his dim glasses at the pair\n  Who said \u201cI do, I do\u201d among the dusty\n  Law books.\n            And there were three witnesses.\n  Darius in a white shirt stood between\n  Two others, old and little like himself:\n  The father of the groom--roundheaded, fumbling\n  Miserably at his tie--and full of tears\n  The mother, full of shame and happy tears.\n\n  Her boy was being married. But to think--\n  To think--and then the rest of it was weeping;\n  Was waiting till the four of them were home;\n  Was wondering how soon she could forget.\n  Dora would have his baby in her house.\n  And then she could forget. She wiped her eyes.\n  Darius here--now he would be alone,\n  And that perhaps was harder. So \u201cI do\u201d\n  Came distantly across the room as she compared\n  Their griefs; and when the couple, bent to kiss,\n  Held on to one another, and held on\n  And on, as if the world would die this way,\n  She was content again.\n                        But no one saw\n  Nine more in the brown room, or heard the voice\n  Of Hermes asking Artemis, who frowned,\n  What further end she strained for. All but Ares\n  Stood there, in no space the mortals knew,\n  The little mortals, mingling their low words\n  With these unheard, these high ones. Sullen Ares\n  Sulked on a far hill. But Aphrodite,\n  Resting her fair side against the law books,\n  Laughed; and the green goddess answered Hermes:\n\n  \u201cSee? There still is mischief in one mind\n  Among us, there is insolence. The end?\n  She has not worked it yet. Beware of her\n  Who hates this thing we witness; it defeats\n  Her farmer, and she never will forgive.\u201d\n\n  The laughing goddess listened with her eyes\n  Turned elsewhere--on Hephaestus, whom she taunted,\n  Teasing him with glances at his broken\n  Foot, and at the thickness of his wrists.\n  \u201cArtisan!\u201d she said. \u201cInfernal tinker!\n  You are not one of us. Then why do you creep\n  Each morning, crooked fool, and haunt the man?\n  You do, in the poor likeness of a mender--\n  What is it that you mend? What is the word?\u201d\n\n  \u201cStoves.\u201d\n            \u201cI\u2019ll not pronounce it. Such a word!\n  I scorn it. And scorn you. And yet I say--\n  Remember my own strength, that can undo\n  The cunningest contriver. No more haunt\n  The man. By night, by morning, no more crawl--\n  You hear?--and charm his sadness till it sleeps.\n  You think to cure his longing with some lessons,\n  Monger, in your art. But my own art\n  Is ultimate. Remember, and refrain.\u201d\n\n  Hephaestus shifted crabwise on his ankles,\n  Refusing every glance until the rite\n  Was finished, and the people in the room\n  Departed. Then he ducked and disappeared,\n  Eluding even Hermes, even the sea-grey\n  Eyes of sage Athene. He was bound\n  For Daniel, whom he haunted every day\n  In the same likeness he had first assumed\n  When Daniel, missing the comfort of his pipe bowl,\n  Got it again, and wondered.\n                              Bruce and Dora,\n  Heeled by their elders, one of whom still wept,\n  Went home another way; and the inaudible\n  Deities went home--to the green hilltop,\n  The high glade where Ares, though he heard,\n  Sent down no shout of welcome. Aphrodite,\n  Following to where the mountains forked,\n  Deserted there; dipping away and flying,\n  Like one of her own doves, to Daniel\u2019s house.\n\n  But Daniel stood with someone in the barn\n  By the new anvil he had bought, considering\n  Hot and cold; and how a hammer\u2019s blow\n  Can bend the iron, not break it.\n                                  \u201cWhen you came,\n  That day, and brought my pipe--I still am puzzled--\n  How did you do it, man?\u201d\n                          \u201cLook here! I take\n  This strip of ten-gauge, and I heat it thus--\n  Pretend the forge is going--then I twist it,\n  So, until I have a perfect handle\n  For the fire tongs you need.\u201d\n                                No other answer.\n  \u201cSee? Now when you have the bellows going--\n  Watch me--this is what the draft can do.\u201d\n  No other answer. So the pupil bent,\n  Considering.\n              And neither of them saw--\n  Or Daniel did not--bright eyes at the door,\n  Brimming with alien purpose.\n                              \u201cYour good wife,\u201d\n  The woman said--and Daniel, starting round,\n  Saw how the gold one narrowed her long lids\n  Toward him who held the hammer--\u201csends for you.\n  She tells you this is wasting time, is wearing\n  The day out; is pure nothing. And she says--\n  Dismiss the tinker. Let him go his way.\n  He is not wanted here.\u201d\n                          The hammer dropped.\n  But Daniel shook his head at her.\n                                    \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t\n  Know. It isn\u2019t woman\u2019s work. Besides,\n  It keeps me safe from thinking certain thoughts.\n  She wouldn\u2019t know that either. Or would you.\u201d\n\n  He flushed, remembering how much she knew\n  If dreams had body, and if at the dance\n  It was her own live lips that so rebuked him.\n  But no, that couldn\u2019t be. He said it again,\n  And turned to the lame tinker.\n                                \u201cWe\u2019ll not stop,\n  For her or anybody. Tell me now--\u201d\n  Whereat Hephaestus grinned, and Aphrodite,\n  Stamping her white foot, that all but showed\n  Immortal through the slipper, let them be.\n\n  Yet not for long. The lame one in his room,\n  That night and every night, was pinched awake\n  By fingers he well knew; and knew as well\n  How in the darkness, sweating, to endure.\n  For he was steadfast--like his tossing pupil,\n  Daniel, in the bed where Berrien lay.\n\n  Hour after hour, that night and every night,\n  Berrien strove to riddle his strange words,\n  His mumbled words, that stubbornly kept on\n  Refusing what was whispered. What was that?\n  Or was it anything? Was someone by them,\n  Whispering to him? She lay and wondered,\n  Doubtful of his mind, that so could mumble,\n  Endlessly, at nothing, maybe nothing.\n\n  But it was never nothing. Aphrodite,\n  Going between Hephaestus\u2019 bed and his,\n  Was a changed goddess, bearing every charm\n  Of beauty she possessed, that he once more\n  Might madden. Dora came there too, he thought,\n  And wept in her first figure, the demure one,\n  The thin and still one, that was his again--\n  \u201cIt is, it is!\u201d the whisper at his side\n  Said tirelessly, \u201cwhenever you will reach\n  And take it. Be the lover you were then,\n  And take it, take it, take it. Go and be\n  Her lover; speak the truth as winter once,\n  As warmness, spoke it for you. Is it late?\n  Is there a foolish thing that now deforms her?\n  And for that thing a father? Is it published\n  That he is the thing\u2019s foolish, foolish father?\n  Have none of it. Forget these moments since,\n  And take her. She is yours--see how she weeps\n  And wishes she had Daniel\u2019s hands forever--\n  Forever it could be, if you were bold\n  And shouted without shame the burning truth--\n  Forever, Daniel, ever down her small\n  Smooth sides; or where her breasts, that breathed for you,\n  Might breathe again.\u201d\n                        He moaned and turned away,\n  Tormented. And sometimes the whisper died,\n  So that he looked again. It was an artful\n  Death, increasing torment, for the two\n  Shone there as always. They were never gone,\n  Those two, while August lasted; and while summer\n  Saddened on the stalk.\n                        For rust had bent\n  The hayheads while he dreamed, and far to north\n  The feet of fall were coming. Daniel rose\n  Each day a wearier man, yet not apostate\n  Ever to his black anvil, where with the smith\n  He lost himself in lessons hot and cold.\n  And still the woman came to call him in.\n  And still he could refuse her.\n                                So September,\n  With speckles on its back, slid like a serpent\n  Over the cool slopes; and lucky houses,\n  Filled with a winter\u2019s wood, sat where they were,\n  Complacent; while upon the homeless highways\n  Wanderers appeared.\n                      So Dora\u2019s time\n  Came slowly, slowly on, with few to know\n  Or care when it should come; except Darius,\n  Who prowled each afternoon to Bruce\u2019s house,\n  Consoling himself there for being lonely;\n  Except the little roundhead and his anxious\n  Wife; except those strangers up the mountain;\n  And Bruce himself, awaiting it with Dora.\n\n\n\n\n  VIII\n\n\n  It came, the time of Dora, when no man,\n  No man of all her three, was home for messenger.\n  Darius snored in his own house--a ball\n  Of skin beneath the bedclothes--and the night\n  Was early yet for Bruce, who with his father\n  Tramped the low road from Brownlee\u2019s where they worked,\n  And working, thought of Dora--all day long\n  Of Dora\u2019s time, next week or the week after.\n\n  But it was now, and none of all the three men\n  Home to be her messenger! The doctor--\n  How could he be told the time had come\n  For pain, for crying out? Then Bruce\u2019s mother,\n  Moaning, was so helpless at the door,\n  Calling, calling, calling: \u201cBruce, where are you?\n  Go and get the doctor! Hurry, boy!\u201d\n  But Bruce was on the low road, and the only\n  Ears that heard were scattered up the sky.\n  Artemis, on top of Silver Mountain,\n  Heard; and woke Athene; and the others,\n  Knowing it was time, went with them both\n  Like falling stars--all of them, like stars,\n  To drop and stand in darkness by the door\n  While Bruce\u2019s mother, moaning, called and called:\n  \u201cWhere are you, boy? Hurry! Get the doctor!\u201d\n\n  And still another heard. But Aphrodite,\n  Listening while Daniel sat, could smile\n  And wait; could think and wait. It was the time\n  For punishing this man who in his dreams\n  Refused her. She could wait and let it work--\n  The punishment she planned.\n                              For she had looked\n  Last night along the valley, and seen coming,\n  Hapless on the highway, two small wanderers,\n  And said: They shall be mine.\n                                She heard the moaning\n  Cease, and knew that Artemis was there.\n  The nurse was there, and Dora would be crying\n  Softly: \u201cSave me, save me! Send for him!\u201d\n\n  So Aphrodite, gathering her sly strength,\n  Waited no longer.\n                    Where were those poor wanderers--\n  That pair? But she had seen them, and she knew.\n  She saw them even now at the abandoned\n  Chapel down the old road, trying doors\n  And windows, and forlornly turning in\n  Where nothing was but darkness; and in darkness,\n  Nothing but cobwebs.\n                      Smiling a last smile,\n  Vindictive, at the sitter, she uprose\n  And scented the whole night, the outer night\n  Of fields and barns and houses, as she flew\n  And flew, tinting earth with a false dawn\n  As in her brilliant singleness she flew\n  And flew to be the first where Hermes came.\n\n  For even now the tall nurse--goddess again\n  In the dooryard where they clustered--told her peers:\n  \u201cThe time! It is the time! Go, two of you--\n  Hermes, shall it be? With Gabriel?--\n  And bring him here, the man of herbs she cries for.\n  I could do all alone, for I am skilful,\n  I am the green deliveress. Yet go--\n  Gabriel, with Hermes--while I soothe\n  And ready her. The horses that he drives--\n  You hear them now, drawing the tired one home.\n  But have no pity. Hurry and intercept him.\n  Say it is the nurse--say anything--\n  But bring him here, the mortal man of herbs,\n  Between you lest she die.\u201d\n                            The feet of Hermes\n  Glistened as the staff in his right hand\n  Touched Gabriel on the nearer wing; then lightly\n  Touched him again. And so the pair departed.\n  Before the goddess turned they were a rustle\n  In the far woods; and Artemis went in\n  Where Dora lay.\n                  \u201cThe doctor--he is sent for.\n  Child! What are you staring at?\u201d For Dora\n  Shuddered, and alternately her eyes\n  Opened and closed in terror, as at brightness\n  Impossible, brought near. But then she smiled.\n  \u201cIt was my own mistake--the way I am.\n  You were so different. You shone in the door\n  Like candles, you were like a statue lady--\n  Different from us. I didn\u2019t know you.\n  Now I do, though.\u201d\n                    She permitted hands\n  To smooth, to cool her as she lay in fever,\n  And as the pain returned; while Artemis\n  Looked gravely, out of eyes she kept in shadow,\n  At the small face whereon the truth had fallen;\n  Looked, and wondered fearfully. Had Hermes,\n  Had Gabriel heard the horses? Found the man?\n\n  But Aphrodite was there first--an ancient\n  Gypsy, rising out of the dim road\n  And shrilling between wheels:\n                                \u201cDoctor, Doctor!\n  Come to the dead church--the one they don\u2019t\n  Sing songs in any more. A poverty fellow\n  And his sick queen--not my people, but I pity,\n  Pity them--they lie in the carriage shed.\n  Or she does, the queen. In all the world\n  No friend, and both afraid. They have walked miles\n  From nowhere, and no house would take them in.\n  She whimpers with the young thing in her belly,\n  The babe she has to bear. Come with me, Doctor,\n  And help her. Be the one man in the world\n  To help her.\u201d\n                \u201cWho are you?\u201d His glasses peered\n  Through the poor light the buggy lamp cast down.\n\n  \u201cRomany.\u201d\n            \u201cAnd what\u2019s this? You mean the church--\u201d\n\n  \u201cThe old one.\u201d\n                \u201cEven mice won\u2019t go near that.\n  Mischief--you mean mischief. Out of the way,\n  Granny!\u201d\n          But she seized the reins and said:\n  \u201cGood doctor! Be the one man in the world--\u201d\n\n  And why it was he knew not, but he went\n  Where she did, down the sod road toward that moldy\n  Building where no hymnsong had been heard\n  Since war days, and where beggars--did she lie?--\n  Might be or not be.\n                      So when Hermes came,\n  And Gabriel, there was silence on the highway--\n  Soft as they listened, never the good sound\n  Of hooves, of whirring felloes.\n                                  Long they looked\n  And listened; then were back in Bruce\u2019s dooryard,\n  Signalling their presence; so that Artemis,\n  Stooping at the window, saw them desolate,\n  And knew herself defeated.\n                            \u201cAphrodite!\u201d\n  She only thought the word, but Dora stared\n  And begged of her: \u201cHas someone--has he come?\n  The doctor? Bruce? Where\u2019s Bruce?\u201d\n                                    \u201cBe patient, dear.\n  In time, in time. The doctor was not found.\n  But there is time, and I myself have medicines--\n  You trust me?\u201d\n                Dora nodded.\n                            \u201cThen I\u2019ll go, child,\n  For certain things--for such help as I need.\n  Be patient a few minutes. She is here.\u201d\n  For Bruce\u2019s mother, torturing her hands\n  As if they were another\u2019s on the rack,\n  Stood by them, bent and weeping.\n                                  All were there\n  When Artemis, the doorlight shut behind her,\n  Shouted. Even Aphrodite smiled\n  And innocently listened, fair as ever\n  In the fine light that clothed her--no more gypsy,\n  And no more theater woman. Even Ares--\n  All of them were there, with lame Hephaestus\n  Filling his low place among the pear trees,\n  When the green goddess called.\n                                \u201cHer breath is going.\n  Enemy of all\u201d--to Aphrodite--\n  \u201cI shall waste none on you. I only say,\n  The girl inside is going. Which of you\n  Can help me, and help her? The middle angel--\n  Second of you three--immense of wing--\n  Raphael--have you knowledge?\u201d\n                                There was mournful\n  Music in the answer.\n                      \u201cI have mended,\n  Green one, all the wounds made here on earth--\n  Or there--by deed of angels. In the old days\n  They fell--not such as we are--and their fall,\n  As of dark stars that burned, corrupted the sons,\n  The daughters of frail man. If this is such--\u201d\n\n  \u201cIt is. Come in with me, shrunk to the likeness\n  Of a lean passing farmer. I have herbs\n  And needles. You have strength, and a strange art.\n  Between us--but come quickly!\u201d\n                                And Darius\n  Snored in his own house. And Daniel sat\n  Late by a brass lamp, reading.\n                                And the doctor,\n  Bending to ask the name of the new mother,\n  Heard \u201cMary.\u201d\n                By the half light of a low\n  Fire she lay on straw and let her weak hand\n  Wander.\n          \u201cBut my husband--he is Joe.\n  There was no work for him. So we went on.\n  Thank you, Doctor.\u201d\n                      \u201cQuiet. No more talking.\u201d\n\n  And Bruce\u2019s father, panting on the low road,\n  Wondered why his son would never rest.\n\n\n\n\n  IX\n\n\n  The risen sun, sparkling upon their bridles,\n  Hastened the roan horses; and brought Bruce--\n  Brought even the stiff doctor--beams of hope,\n  Of something like belief; though Bruce remembered,\n  And groaned as he remembered, how the nurse,\n  Weeping, had looked afraid when he came home;\n  How she and the dark man she had for helper,\n  Bending above the sufferer, grew sad,\n  Grew guilty as he came, hearing with him\n  His little mother\u2019s whimpers, and the cry--\n  Sudden, as if death were in the room--\n  Of Dora when she saw him. And his father\u2019s\n  Feebleness--now he remembered that,\n  And groaned.\n              \u201cBut couldn\u2019t the nurse--for she was there--\n  Wouldn\u2019t the nurse have known?\u201d\n                                  \u201cI tell you, boy,\n  I have no nurse. Something is stranger here--\n  Giddup!--than God is ever going to tell me.\n  Nurse? There was no such.\u201d\n                            And the horses galloped,\n  Jingling their bright bridles, till the dooryard\n  Darkened them, and Bruce\u2019s mother stumbled,\n  Her apron at her face, among the plum trees.\n\n  \u201cI am alone,\u201d she cried, \u201cexcept for him--\u201d\n  She pointed where her husband, on a stone\n  As grey as he was, sat and held his forehead--\n  \u201cWe are alone now, my boy. Too late,\n  Doctor. Even the nurse is gone. The child,\n  The dear child, is dead. They both are dead--\n  Dora, and the other one that never,\n  Never, never breathed.\u201d\n                          She clutched at Bruce,\n  Feeling the doctor brush them as he passed,\n  Then feeling not at all. She only nodded,\n  Nodded, as her son repeated: \u201cDead--\n  Dora, she is dead.\u201d And bore her in,\n  A limp superfluous bundle.\n                            \u201cOh, my boy!\u201d--\n  Perceptibly her white lips lived again--\n  \u201cBeautiful! One thing about her going,\n  Oh, my boy, was beautiful. She saw--\n  Or thought she saw--ten angels in the room.\n  She counted them. But only three had wings.\n  She counted the big wings. And said the nurse\n  Was queen above all others.\u201d\n                              \u201cNurse? What nurse?\u201d\n  The doctor in the doorway shook his head,\n  Frowning, as if to free it from the cobweb\n  Sound of that false word. \u201cThere was no such--\u201d\n\n  But the small mother never would believe--\n  He knew it--and Bruce never would believe.\n  Who had this tall impostor woman been?\n  And why? And who the other one? Bruce had said:\n  \u201cA teacher, too--her friend.\u201d There was no such--\n\n  The doctor shook his head. Shame on those bunglers--\n  Butcherers of girls--who with their knotted\n  Grass roots and their needles--natural thorns--\n  Had poisoned the sweet blood, the delicate place.\n  Where were they, vagrants, now? Could any law\n  Catch up with their coarse hands, and cleanse the world\n  Of meddlers on the march? For they were somewhere\n  Still, the doctor knew; and looked at Bruce\n  Bent dumbly over Dora. In good time\n  The boy would feel. He was so quiet now--\n  An animal, playing dead.\n                          Then Daniel stood there--\n  Daniel, with Darius at his heels:\n  An old hound whom giant grief had gentled.\n  Yet he could move, and did, to where no daughter\n  Welcomed his hard hand; which nevertheless\n  Hovered and touched her--touched her, so that tears\n  Followed, and streamed his face.\n                                  \u201cI brought him here,\u201d\n  Said Daniel. \u201cI was told of it by one--\n  By two--but they are gone. They do not matter.\n  Both of them are gone. They said they knew--\n  My lodgers--then they went. But that\u2019s no matter.\n  I told her father, and he came with me.\n  Look at him now. And her. We are not enemies.\n  Who is my enemy?\u201d\n                    \u201cI was,\u201d said Bruce.\n\n  \u201cYou were. And I was Dora\u2019s. What I did--\u201d\n\n  \u201cYou did. But never tell it. As my friend\n  In sorrow, never say it. There are ears--\u201d\n\n  He went to where his mother, staring up,\n  Saw none but that dear face.\n                              Then Daniel\u2019s stillness\n  Reigned in the room.\n                      Even the doctor, going,\n  Went as a thought does, thinly; but his mind\n  Was more with Mary and her living child,\n  In the lost church, than here.\n                                A living child.\n  He must go back to that small son; must listen\n  To the soft mother\u2019s voice. Why had he stopped her?\n  \u201cQuiet. No more talking.\u201d Was even then\n  This mystery in his head, this hazy mirror\n  Of a much older birth? Who was it? When?\n  What torment not to remember. Just like this,\n  Yet where? He drove and thought; and was the image\n  Of a whole people, impotent to see now\n  The one god it had.\n                      So three old friends,\n  By death remade, stood looking down at Dora.\n\n\n\n\n  X\n\n\n  Already, in this moment before silver\n  Morning, ten were on their way to sea.\n  Already, over mountains and rock rivers--\n  Tawny with high autumn, yet no sun\n  Uprisen had revealed it--Hermes sped\n  And spoke not. At the center of his band,\n  Encircled, he was thoughtful as he flew\n  And flew to where a smoking funnel waited,\n  By a smooth prow whereon the ten would ride,\n  Would ride the waste Atlantic.\n                                \u201cThey were small,\n  These people, they were pitiful and small,\u201d\n  Said Hermes, half aloud. \u201cYet not unworthy,\n  Nobles, of our regard.\u201d\n                          \u201cThey did not guess,\u201d\n  Said Artemis, \u201chow small.\u201d\n                            \u201cThey could not measure,\u201d\n  Flashed the grey eyes of swift Athene, flying,\n  \u201cDifference. They were lonely. They had nothing\n  Past them to compare. They do not move,\n  These persons, among greater persons still.\n  The knowledge of the difference is all.\n  Mortals with art to measure it are never\n  Pitiful.\u201d\n            \u201cI thought,\u201d mused Aphrodite,\n  Beautiful by night as her own star,\n  Her morning\u2019s mirror, up now in the east,\n  \u201cI thought I met a presence in that musty\n  Stable. Felt a power. Yet all so quiet--\n  Not even the black beetles crept away.\n  Queer, if it was a god--their only god,\n  And none of the fools knew.\u201d\n                              \u201cIt was your own\n  Mind\u2019s darkness,\u201d Ares muttered; and Hephaestus\n  Laughed--at Aphrodite he could laugh,\n  Now that his limbs were free.\n                                \u201cWas there a song?\n  Even a musty music? Where a god is,\n  Surely the air will sound.\u201d Apollo hummed,\n  Remembering the barn dance and the moon.\n  \u201cDid you hear anything to prove a presence?\u201d\n\n  Artemis, her green robe gilded suddenly\n  By the first beams of sun, was angry still.\n  \u201cShe heard but her own hatefulness, that plotted\n  Death.\u201d\n          \u201cI left the living in your hands--\n  Yours, and the mighty angel\u2019s. If you erred,\n  Darling of fawns and virgins, I regret,\n  As you must, any faltering of skill.\u201d\n\n  \u201cRegret!\u201d The speed of Artemis redoubled\n  As fury filled her. \u201cLying, laughing word!\n  You poison the whole dawn with it, as then\n  You poisoned--for I know you did--the thorns,\n  The rare leaves I used.\u201d\n                          But Hermes cried:\n  \u201cPeace, peace between you, daughters! What is done\n  Is done. There the ship rides that we take--\n  As one we take it, homing to those lands\n  Where sleep is our best portion. Only sleep.\u201d\n\n  He sighed, and the archangels echoed him:\n  Those three whose sire, unknown to them last night,\n  Had dreamed again--a star above a stable.\n  \u201cNot even sleep,\u201d said Michael. \u201cNo, not even\n  Sleep,\u201d droned weary Gabriel. But Raphael\u2019s\n  Sadness was for Artemis to see,\n  And seeing, to have pity on, that no word\n  Henceforth could express.\n                            For now the ship\n  Whistled, and the spires above the harbor\n  Glistened, and the hawsers, letting go,\n  Dangled in salt.\n                  So easterly they sailed,\n  And sailed; then south a little. And the crew\n  Thought only of the Pillars, of the inland\n  Sea where waves were smaller. But these ten,\n  Prone on the prow, disdained the autumn danger\n  Of storm, of the dark swell. Their daily vision--\n  Common to them all, since reconciled--\n  Was the long night ahead; or over Asia,\n  Centuries upon centuries of flying,\n  Flying where no desert, green with the Word,\n  Blossomed and blessed them.\n                              Now as in a dream\n  Never to be redreamed the hills behind them,\n  Huddling that valley, muffled its fine cries\n  Of people trapped in sorrow. Even its glad souls,\n  Silenced, were obscure as drops of dew\n  Hung in the wild Antipodes. No mortal\n  Summer would be given these again:\n  These deities, these angels, who as the dark sea\n  Heaved went on themselves as waves do,\n  Wearily, yet smiling as in a dream.\n\n\n\n\n  [Illustration: COLOPHON]\n\n\n  This book has been designed and printed by Carroll Coleman at The\n  Prairie Press in Iowa City, Iowa. The types are Caslon and Frye\u2019s\n  Ornamented and the paper is Linweave Early American.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTE:\n\n\nItalicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.","title":"Mortal Summer","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":10476}