The Project Gutenberg eBook of Heliodora, and Other Poems

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Title: Heliodora, and Other Poems

Author: H. D.

Release date: June 23, 2020 [eBook #62456]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELIODORA, AND OTHER POEMS ***

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H E L I O D O R A
And Other Poems

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Heliodora

And Other Poems

by H. D.




Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

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MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BUTLER AND TANNER LTD., FROME AND LONDON

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Acknowledgment for the permission to reprint certain poems is due to: Nation, Sphere, Egoist (London); Bookman, Poetry, Double Dealer (New York, Chicago, New Orleans); Transatlantic, Gargoyle (Paris); The Imagist Anthologies and the Miscellany of American Poetry (1922).{7}{6}

Note

The poem Lais has in italics a translation of the Plato epigram in the Greek Anthology. Heliodora has in italics the two Meleager epigrams from the Anthology. In Nossis is the translation of the opening lines of the Garland of Meleager and the poem of Nossis herself in the Greek Anthology. The four Sappho fragments are re-worked freely. The Odyssey is a translation of the opening of the first book. The Ion is a translation of the latter part of the first long choros of the Ion of Euripides.

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 PAGE
WASH OF COLD RIVER11
HOLY SATYR13
LAIS15
HELIODORA18
HELEN24
NOSSIS25
CENTAUR SONG29
OREAD31
THE POOL32
THETIS33
AT ITHACA39
WE TWO42
FRAGMENT THIRTY-SIX44
FLUTE SONG48
AFTER TROY49
CASSANDRA51
EPIGRAMS55
FRAGMENT FORTY57
TOWARD THE PIRÆUS61
MOONRISE67
AT ELEUSIS68
FRAGMENT FORTY-ONE70
{10}TELESILA76
FRAGMENT SIXTY-EIGHT81
LETHE85
SITALKAS86
HERMONAX87
ORION DEAD89
CHARIOTEER91
THE LOOK-OUT102
ODYSSEY108
HYACINTH116
ION124

{11} 

WASH of cold river
 in a glacial land,
 Ionian water,
 chill, snow-ribbed sand,
 drift of rare flowers,
 clear, with delicate shell-
 like leaf enclosing
 frozen lily-leaf,
 camellia texture,
 colder than a rose;
wind-flower
 that keeps the breath
 of the north-wind—
 these and none other;
intimate thoughts and kind
 reach out to share
 the treasure of my mind,
 intimate hands and dear
 draw garden-ward and sea-ward
 all the sheer rapture
 that I would take
 to mould a clear
 and frigid statue;
rare, of pure texture,
 beautiful space and line,
 marble to grace
 your inaccessible shrine.
 {13}{12}

Holy Satyr

MOST holy Satyr,
 like a goat,
 with horns and hooves
 to match thy coat
 of russet brown,
 I make leaf-circlets
 and a crown of honey-flowers
 for thy throat;
 where the amber petals
 drip to ivory,
 I cut and slip
 each stiffened petal
 in the rift
 of carven petal;
 honey horn
 has wed the bright
 virgin petal of the white
 flower cluster: lip to lip
 let them whisper,
 let them lilt, quivering.
Most holy Satyr,
 like a goat,{14}
 hear this our song,
 accept our leaves,
 love-offering,
 return our hymn,
 like echo fling
 a sweet song,
 answering note for note.
 {15}

Lais

LET her who walks in Paphos
 take the glass,
 let Paphos take the mirror
 and the work of frosted fruit,
 gold apples set
 with silver apple-leaf,
 white leaf of silver
 wrought with vein of gilt.
Let Paphos lift the mirror,
 let her look
 into the polished centre of the disk.
Let Paphos take the mirror;
 did she press
 flowerlet of flame-flower
 to the lustrous white
 of the white forehead?
 did the dark veins beat
 a deeper purple
 than the wine-deep tint
 of the dark flower?{16}
Did she deck black hair
 one evening, with the winter-white
 flower of the winter-berry,
 did she look (reft of her lover)
 at a face gone white
 under the chaplet
 of white virgin-breath?
Lais, exultant, tyrannizing Greece,
 Lais who kept her lovers in the porch,
 lover on lover waiting,
 (but to creep
 where the robe brushed the threshold
 where still sleeps Lais,)
 so she creeps, Lais,
 to lay her mirror at the feet
 of her who reigns in Paphos.
Lais has left her mirror
 for she sees no longer in its depth
 the Lais’ self
 that laughed exultant
 tyrannizing Greece.
Lais has left her mirror,
 for she weeps no longer,{17}
 finding in its depth,
 a face, but other
 than dark flame and white
 feature of perfect marble.
Lais has left her mirror,
 (so one wrote)
 to her who reigns in Paphos;
 Lais who laughed a tyrant over Greece,
 Lais who turned the lovers from the porch,
 that swarm for whom now
 Lais has no use;
 Lais is now no lover of the glass,
 seeing no more the face as once it was,
 wishing to see that face and finding this.
 {18}

Heliodora

HE and I sought together,
 over the spattered table,
 rhymes and flowers,
 gifts for a name.
He said, among others,
 I will bring
 (and the phrase was just and good,
 but not as good as mine,)
 “the narcissus that loves the rain.”
We strove for a name,
 while the light of the lamps burnt thin
 and the outer dawn came in,
 a ghost, the last at the feast
 or the first,
 to sit within
 with the two that remained
 to quibble in flowers and verse
 over a girl’s name.
He said, “the rain loving,”
 I said, “the narcissus, drunk,
 drunk with the rain.{19}”
Yet I had lost
 for he said,
 “the rose, the lover’s gift,
 is loved of love,”
 he said it,
 “loved of love;”
 I waited, even as he spoke,
 to see the room filled with a light,
 as when in winter
 the embers catch in a wind
 when a room is dank;
 so it would be filled, I thought,
 our room with a light
 when he said
 (and he said it first,)
 “the rose, the lover’s delight,
 is loved of love,”
 but the light was the same.
Then he caught,
 seeing the fire in my eyes,
 my fire, my fever, perhaps,
 for he leaned
 with the purple wine
 stained on his sleeve,{20}
 and said this:
 “did you ever think
 a girl’s mouth
 caught in a kiss,
 is a lily that laughs?”
I had not.
 I saw it now
 as men must see it forever afterwards;
 no poet could write again,
 “the red-lily,
 a girl’s laugh caught in a kiss;”
 it was his to pour in the vat
 from which all poets dip and quaff,
 for poets are brothers in this.
So I saw the fire in his eyes,
 it was almost my fire,
 (he was younger,)
 I saw the face so white,
 my heart beat,
 it was almost my phrase;
 I said, “surprise the muses,
 take them by surprise;{21}
 it is late,
 rather it is dawn-rise,
 those ladies sleep, the nine,
 our own king’s mistresses.”
A name to rhyme,
 flowers to bring to a name,
 what was one girl faint and shy,
 with eyes like the myrtle,
 (I said: “her underlids
 are rather like myrtle,”)
 to vie with the nine?
Let him take the name,
 he had the rhymes,
 “the rose, loved of love,
 the lily, a mouth that laughs,”
 he had the gift,
 “the scented crocus,
 the purple hyacinth,”
 what was one girl to the nine?
He said:
 “I will make her a wreath;”
 he said:
 “I will write it thus:{22}
I will bring you the lily that laughs,
 I will twine
 with soft narcissus, the myrtle,
 sweet crocus, white violet,
 the purple hyacinth, and last,
 the rose, loved-of-love,
 that these may drip on your hair
 the less soft flowers,
 may mingle sweet with the sweet
 of Heliodora’s locks,
 myrrh-curled.”
(He wrote myrrh-curled,
 I think, the first.)
I said:
 “they sleep, the nine,”
 when he shouted swift and passionate:
 “that for the nine!
 above the hills
 the sun is about to wake,
 and to-day white violets
 shine beside white lilies
 adrift on the mountain side;
 to-day the narcissus opens
 that loves the rain.{23}”
I watched him to the door,
 catching his robe
 as the wine-bowl crashed to the floor,
 spilling a few wet lees,
 (ah, his purple hyacinth!)
 I saw him out of the door,
 I thought:
 there will never be a poet
 in all the centuries after this,
 who will dare write,
 after my friend’s verse,
 “a girl’s mouth
 is a lily kissed.”
 {24}

Helen

ALL Greece hates
 the still eyes in the white face,
 the lustre as of olives
 where she stands,
 and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
 the wan face when she smiles,
 hating it deeper still
 when it grows wan and white,
 remembering past enchantments
 and past ills.
Greece sees unmoved,
 God’s daughter, born of love,
 the beauty of cool feet
 and slenderest knees,
 could love indeed the maid,
 only if she were laid,
 white ash amid funereal cypresses.
 {25}

Nossis

I THOUGHT to hear him speak
 the girl might rise
 and make the garden silver,
 as the white moon breaks,
 “Nossis,” he cried, “a flame.”
I said:
 “a girl that’s dead
 some hundred years;
 a poet—what of that?
 for in the islands,
 in the haunts of Greek Ionia,
 Rhodes and Cyprus,
 girls are cheap.”
I said, to test his mood,
 to make him rage or laugh or sing or weep,
 “in Greek Ionia and in Cyprus,
 many girls are found
 with wreaths and apple-branches.”
“Only a hundred years or two or three,
 has she lain dead{26}
 yet men forget;”
 he said,
 “I want a garden,”
 and I thought
 he wished to make a terrace on the hill,
 bend the stream to it,
 set out daffodils,
 plant Phrygian violets,
 such was his will and whim,
 I thought,
 to name and watch each flower.
His was no garden
 bright with Tyrian violets,
 his was a shelter
 wrought of flame and spirit,
 and as he flung her name
 against the dark,
 I thought the iris-flowers
 that lined the path
 must be the ghost of Nossis.
“Who made the wreath,
 for what man was it wrought?{27}
 speak, fashioned all of fruit-buds,
 song, my loveliest,
 say Meleager brought to Diodes,
 (a gift for that enchanting friend)
 memories with names of poets.
He sought for Moero, lilies,
 and those many,
 red-lilies for Anyte,
 for Sappho, roses,
 with those few, he caught
 that breath of the sweet-scented
 leaf of iris,
 the myrrh-iris,
 to set beside the tablet
 and the wax
 which Love had burnt,
 when scarred across by Nossis.”
when she wrote:
“I Nossis stand by this:
 I state that love is sweet:
 if you think otherwise
 assert what beauty
 or what charm{28}
 after the charm of love,
 retains its grace?
“Honey” you say:
 honey? I say “I spit
 honey out of my mouth:
 nothing is second-best
 after the sweet of Eros.”
I Nossis stand and state
 that he whom Love neglects
 has naught, no flower, no grace,
 who lacks that rose, her kiss.”
I thought to hear him speak
 the girl might rise
 and make the garden silver
 as the white moon breaks,
 “Nossis,” he cried, “a flame.”
 {29}

Centaur Song

NOW that the day is done,
 now that the night creeps soft
 and dims the chestnut clusters’
 radiant spike of flower,
 O sweet, till dawn
 break through the branches
 of our orchard-garden,
 rest in this shelter
 of the osier-wood and thorn.
They fall,
 the apple-flowers;
 nor softer grace has Aphrodite
 in the heaven afar,
 nor at so fair a pace
 open the flower-petals
 as your face bends down,
 while, breath on breath,
 your mouth wanders
 from my mouth o’er my face.
What have I left
 to bring you in this place,{30}
 already sweet with violets?
 (those you brought
 with swathes of earliest grass,
 forest and meadow balm,
 flung from your giant arms
 for us to rest upon.)
Fair are these petals
 broken by your feet;
 your horse’s hooves
 tread softer than a deer’s;
 your eyes, startled,
 are like the deer eyes
 while your heart
 trembles more than the deer.
O earth, O god,
 O forest, stream or river,
 what shall I bring
 that all the day hold back,
 that Dawn remember Love
 and rest upon her bed,
 and Zeus, forgetful not of Danæ or Maia,
bid the stars shine forever.
 {31}

Oread

WHIRL up, sea—
 whirl your pointed pines,
 splash your great pines
 on our rocks,
 hurl your green over us,
 cover us with your pools of fir.
 {32}

The Pool

ARE you alive?
 I touch you.
 You quiver like a sea-fish.
 I cover you with my net.
 What are you—banded one?
 {33}

Thetis

HE had asked for immortal life
 in the old days and had grown old,
 now he had aged apace,
 he asked for his youth,
 and I, Thetis, granted him
freedom under the sea
 drip and welter of weeds,
 the drift of the fringing grass,
 the gift of the never-withering moss,
 and the flowering reed,
and most,
 beauty of fifty nereids,
 sisters of nine,
 I one of their least,
 yet great and a goddess,
 granted Pelius,
love under the sea,
 beauty, grace infinite:
So I crept, at last,
 a crescent, a curve of a wave,{34}
 (a man would have thought,
 had he watched for his nets
 on the beach)
 a dolphin, a glistening fish,
 that burnt and caught for its light,
 the light of the undercrest
 of the lifting tide,
 a fish with silver for breast,
 with no light but the light
 of the sea it reflects.
Little he would have guessed,
 (had such a one
 watched by his nets,)
 that a goddess flung from the crest
 of the wave the blue of its own
 bright tress of hair,
 the blue of the painted stuff
 it wore for dress.
No man would have known save he,
 whose coming I sensed as I strung
 my pearl and agate and pearl,
 to mark the beat and the stress
 of the lilt of my song.{35}
Who dreams of a son,
 save one,
 childless, having no bright
 face to flatter its own,
 who dreams of a son?
Nereids under the sea,
 my sisters, fifty and one,
 (counting myself)
 they dream of a child
 of water and sea,
 with hair of the softest,
 to lie along the curve
 of fragile, tiny bones,
 yet more beautiful each than each,
 hair more bright and long,
 to rival its own.
Nereids under the wave,
 who dreams of a son
 save I, Thetis, alone?
Each would have for a child,
 a stray self, furtive and wild,
 to dive and leap to the wind,
 to wheedle and coax{36}
 the stray birds bright and bland
 of foreign strands,
 to crawl and stretch on the sands,
 each would have for its own,
 a daughter for child.
Who dreams, who sings of a son?
 I, Thetis, alone.
When I had finished my song,
 and dropped the last seed-pearl,
 and flung the necklet
 about my throat
 and found it none too bright,
 not bright enough nor pale
 enough, not like the moon that creeps
 beneath the sea,
 between the lift of crest and crest,
 had tried it on
 and found it not
 quite fair enough
 to fill the night
 of my blue folds of bluest dress
 with moon for light,
 I cast the beads aside and leapt,{37}
 myself all blue
 with no bright gloss
 of pearls for crescent light;
but one alert, all blue and wet,
 I flung myself, an arrow’s flight,
 straight upward
 through the blue of night
 that was my palace wall,
 and crept to where I saw the mark
 of feet, a rare foot-fall:
Achilles’ sandal on the beach,
 could one mistake?
 perhaps a lover or a nymph,
 lost from the tangled fern and brake,
 that lines the upper shelf of land,
 perhaps a goddess or a nymph
 might so mistake
 Achilles’ footprint for the trace
 of a bright god alert to track
 the panther where he slinks for thirst
 across the sand;
perhaps a goddess or a nymph,
 might think a god had crossed the track{38}
 of weed and drift,
 had broken here this stem of reed,
 had turned this sea-shell to the light:
So she must stoop, this goddess girl,
 or nymph, with crest of blossoming wood
 about her hair for cap or crown,
 must stoop and kneel and bending down,
 must kiss the print of such a one.
Not I, the mother, Thetis self,
 I stretched and lay, a river’s slim
 dark length,
 a rivulet where it leaves the wood,
 and meets the sea,
 I lay along the burning sand,
 a river’s blue.
 {39}

At Ithaca

OVER and back,
 the long waves crawl
 and track the sand with foam;
 night darkens and the sea
 takes on that desperate tone
 of dark that wives put on
 when all their love is done.
Over and back,
 the tangled thread falls slack,
 over and up and on;
 over and all is sewn;
 now while I bind the end,
 I wish some fiery friend
 would sweep impetuously
 these fingers from the loom.
My weary thoughts
 play traitor to my soul,
 just as the toil is over;
 swift while the woof is whole,
 turn now my spirit, swift,
 and tear the pattern there,
 the flowers so deftly wrought,{40}
 the border of sea-blue,
 the sea-blue coast of home.
The web was over-fair,
 that web of pictures there,
 enchantments that I thought
 he had, that I had lost;
 weaving his happiness
 within the stitching frame,
 weaving his fire and fame,
 I thought my work was done,
 I prayed that only one
 of those that I had spurned,
 might stoop and conquer this
 long waiting with a kiss.
But each time that I see
 my work so beautifully
 inwoven and would keep
 the picture and the whole,
 Athene steels my soul,
 slanting across my brain,
 I see as shafts of rain
 his chariot and his shafts,{41}
 I see the arrows fall,
 I see my lord who moves
 like Hector, lord of love,
 I see him matched with fair
 bright rivals and I see
 those lesser rivals flee.
 {42}

We Two

WE two are left:
 I with small grace reveal
 distaste and bitterness;
 you with small patience
 take my hands;
 though effortless,
 you scald their weight
 as a bowl, lined with embers,
 wherein droop
 great petals of white rose,
 forced by the heat
 too soon to break.
We two are left:
 as a blank wall, the world,
 earth and the men who talk,
 saying their space of life
 is good and gracious,
 with eyes blank
 as that blank surface
 their ignorance mistakes
 for final shelter
 and a resting-place.{43}
We two remain:
 yet by what miracle,
 searching within the tangles of my brain,
 I ask again,
 have we two met within
 this maze of dædal paths
 in-wound mid grievous stone,
 where once I stood alone?
 {44}

Fragment Thirty-six

I know not what to do:
 my mind is divided.

SAPPHO

I KNOW not what to do,
 my mind is reft:
 is song’s gift best?
 is love’s gift loveliest?
 I know not what to do,
 now sleep has pressed
 weight on your eyelids.
Shall I break your rest,
 devouring, eager?
 is love’s gift best?
 nay, song’s the loveliest:
 yet were you lost,
 what rapture
 could I take from song?
 what song were left?
I know not what to do:
 to turn and slake
 the rage that burns,
 with my breath burn{45}
 and trouble your cool breath?
 so shall I turn and take
 snow in my arms?
 (is love’s gift best?)
 yet flake on flake
 of snow were comfortless,
 did you lie wondering,
 wakened yet unawake.
Shall I turn and take
 comfortless snow within my arms?
 press lips to lips
 that answer not,
 press lips to flesh
 that shudders not nor breaks?
Is love’s gift best?
 shall I turn and slake
 all the wild longing?
 O I am eager for you!
 as the Pleiads shake
 white light in whiter water
 so shall I take you?
My mind is quite divided,
 my minds hesitate,{46}
 so perfect matched,
 I know not what to do:
 each strives with each
 as two white wrestlers
 standing for a match,
 ready to turn and clutch
 yet never shake muscle nor nerve nor tendon;
 so my mind waits
 to grapple with my mind,
 yet I lie quiet,
 I would seem at rest.
I know not what to do:
 strain upon strain,
 sound surging upon sound
 makes my brain blind;
 as a wave-line may wait to fall
 yet (waiting for its falling)
 still the wind may take
 from off its crest,
 white flake on flake of foam,
 that rises,
 seeming to dart and pulse
 and rend the light,
 so my mind hesitates{47}
 above the passion
 quivering yet to break,
 so my mind hesitates
 above my mind,
 listening to song’s delight.
I know not what to do:
 will the sound break,
 rending the night
 with rift on rift of rose
 and scattered light?
 will the sound break at last
 as the wave hesitant,
 or will the whole night pass
 and I lie listening awake?
 {48}

Flute Song

LITTLE scavenger away,
 touch not the door,
 beat not the portal down,
 cross not the sill,
 silent until
 my song, bright and shrill,
 breathes out its lay.
Little scavenger avaunt,
 tempt me with jeer and taunt,
 yet you will wait to-day;
 for it were surely ill
 to mock and shout and revel;
 it were more fit to tell
 with flutes and calathes,
 your mother’s praise.
 {49}

After Troy

WE flung against their gods,
 invincible, clear hate;
 we fought;
 frantic, we flung the last
 imperious, desperate shaft
and lost:
 we knew the loss
 before they ever guessed
 fortune had tossed to them
 her favour and her whim;
 but how were we depressed?
 we lost yet as we pressed
 our spearsmen on their best,
 we knew their line invincible
 because there fell
 on them no shiverings
 of the white enchanteress,
 radiant Aphrodite’s spell:
we hurled our shafts of passion,
 noblest hate,
 and knew their cause was blest,
 and knew their gods were nobler,{50}
 better taught in skill,
 subtler with wit of thought,
 yet had it been God’s will
 that they not we should fall,
 we know those fields had bled
 with roses lesser red.
 {51}

Cassandra

O Hymen king.

HYMEN, O Hymen king,
 what bitter thing is this?
 what shaft, tearing my heart?
 what scar, what light, what fire
 searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame?
 nameless, O spoken name,
 king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.
Why do you blind my eyes?
 why do you dart and pulse
 till all the dark is home,
 then find my soul
 and ruthless draw it back?
 scaling the scaleless,
 opening the dark?
 speak, nameless, power and might;
 when will you leave me quite?
 when will you break my wings
 or leave them utterly free
 to scale heaven endlessly?
A bitter, broken thing,
 my heart, O Hymen lord,{52}
 yet neither drought nor sword
 baffles men quite,
 why must they feign to fear
 my virgin glance?
 feigned utterly or real
 why do they shrink?
 my trance frightens them,
 breaks the dance,
 empties the market place;
 if I but pass they fall
 back, frantically;
 must always people mock?
 unless they shrink and reel
 as in the temple
 at your uttered will.
O Hymen king,
 lord, greatest, power, might,
 look for my face is dark,
 burnt with your light,
 your fire, O Hymen lord;
 is there none left
 can equal me
 in ecstasy, desire?
 is there none left{53}
 can bear with me
 the kiss of your white fire?
 is there not one,
 Phrygian or frenzied Greek,
 poet, song-swept, or bard,
 one meet to take from me
 this bitter power of song,
 one fit to speak, Hymen,
 your praises, lord?
May I not wed
 as you have wed?
 may it not break, beauty,
 from out my hands, my head, my feet?
 may Love not lie beside me
 till his heat
 burn me to ash?
 may he not comfort me, then,
 spent of all that fire and heat,
 still, ashen-white and cool
 as the wet laurels,
 white, before your feet
 step on the mountain-slope,
 before your fiery hand
 lift up the mantle{54}
 covering flower and land,
 as a man lifts,
 O Hymen, from his bride,
 (cowering with woman eyes,) the veil?
 O Hymen lord, be kind.
 {55}

Epigrams

1

O RUTHLESS, perilous, imperious hate,
 you can not thwart
 the promptings of my soul,
 you can not weaken nay nor dominate
 Love that is mateless,
 Love the rite,
 the whole measure of being:
 would you crush with bondage?
 nay, you would love me not
 were I your slave.

2

TORTURE me not with this or that or this,
 Love is my master,
 you his lesser self;
 while you are Love,
 I love you generously,
 be Eros,
 not a tyrannous, bitter mate:
 Love has no charm
 when Love is swept to earth:{56}
 you’d make a lop-winged god,
 frozen and contrite,
 of god up-darting,
 winged for passionate flight.
 {57}

Fragment Forty

Love ... bitter-sweet.

SAPPHO

1

KEEP love and he wings
 with his bow,
 up, mocking us,
 keep love and he taunts us
 and escapes.
Keep love and he sways apart
 in another world,
 outdistancing us.
Keep love and he mocks,
 ah, bitter and sweet,
 your sweetness is more cruel
 than your hurt.
Honey and salt,
 fire burst from the rocks
 to meet fire
 spilt from Hesperus.{58}
Fire darted aloft and met fire:
 in that moment
 love entered us.

2

COULD Eros be kept?
 he were prisoned long since
 and sick with imprisonment;
 could Eros be kept?
 others would have broken
 and crushed out his life.
Could Eros be kept?
 we too sinning, by Kypris,
 might have prisoned him outright.
Could Eros be kept?
 nay, thank him and the bright goddess
 that he left us.

3

AH, love is bitter and sweet,
 but which is more sweet,
 the sweetness
 or the bitterness?
 none has spoken it.{59}
Love is bitter,
 but can salt taint sea-flowers,
 grief, happiness?
Is it bitter to give back
 love to your lover
 if he crave it?
Is it bitter to give back
 love to your lover
 if he wish it
 for a new favourite?
 who can say,
 or is it sweet?
Is it sweet
 to possess utterly?
 or is it bitter,
 bitter as ash?

4

I had thought myself frail;
 a petal,
 with light equal
 on leaf and under-leaf.{60}
I had thought myself frail;
 a lamp,
 shell, ivory or crust of pearl,
 about to fall shattered,
 with flame spent.
I cried:
 “I must perish,
 I am deserted,
 an outcast, desperate
 in this darkness,”
 (such fire rent me with Hesperus,)
 then the day broke.

5

WHAT need of a lamp
 when day lightens us,
 what need to bind love
 when love stands
 with such radiant wings
 over us?
What need—
 yet to sing love,
 love must first shatter us.
 {61}

Toward the Piræus

SLAY with your eyes, Greek,
 men over the face of the earth,
 slay with your eyes, the host,
 puny, passionless, weak.
Break as the ranks of steel
 broke when the Persian lost:
 craven, we hated them then:
 now we would count them Gods
 beside these, spawn of the earth.
Grant us your mantle, Greek;
 grant us but one
 to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
 men, craven and weak,
 grant us but one to strike
 one blow for you, passionate Greek.

1

YOU would have broken my wings,
 but the very fact that you knew
 I had wings, set some seal
 on my bitter heart, my heart
 broke and fluttered and sang.{62}
You would have snared me,
 and scattered the strands of my nest;
 but the very fact that you saw,
 sheltered me, claimed me,
 set me apart from the rest
Of men—of men, made you a god,
 and me, claimed me, set me apart
 and the song in my breast,
 yours, yours forever—
 if I escape your evil heart.

2

I loved you:
 men have writ and women have said
 they loved,
 but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
 intense and may not move,
till the fumes pass over;
 and may not falter or break,
 till the priest has caught the words
 that mar or make
 a deme or a ravaged town;{63}
 so I, though my knees tremble,
 my heart break,
 must note the rumbling,
 heed only the shuddering
 down in the fissure beneath the rock
 of the temple floor;
must wait and watch
 and may not turn nor move,
 nor break from my trance to speak
 so slight, so sweet,
 so simple a word as love.

3

WHAT had you done
 had you been true,
 I can not think,
 I may not know.
What could we do
 were I not wise,
 what play invent,
 what joy devise?{64}
What could we do
 if you were great?
(Yet were you lost,
 who were there then,
 to circumvent
 the tricks of men?)
What can we do,
 for curious lies
 have filled your heart,
 and in my eyes
 sorrow has writ
 that I am wise.

4

IF I had been a boy,
 I would have worshipped your grace,
 I would have flung my worship
 before your feet,
 I would have followed apart,
 glad, rent with an ecstasy
 to watch you turn
 your great head, set on the throat,
 thick, dark with its sinews,{65}
 burned and wrought
 like the olive stalk,
 and the noble chin
 and the throat.
I would have stood,
 and watched and watched
 and burned,
 and when in the night,
 from the many hosts, your slaves,
 and warriors and serving men
 you had turned
 to the purple couch and the flame
 of the woman, tall like the cypress tree
 that flames sudden and swift and free
 as with crackle of golden resin
 and cones and the locks flung free
 like the cypress limbs,
 bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
 bound, caught and riven and bound
 and loosened again,
 as in rain of a kingly storm
 or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen
 from all the lethargy of love and its heat,{66}
 you would have summoned me,
 me alone,
 and found my hands,
 beyond all the hands in the world,
 cold, cold, cold,
 intolerably cold and sweet.

5

IT was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
 only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
 of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
 of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild, but fear
 that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
 was over-matched by yours, and your hand
 skilled to yield death-blows, might break
With the slightest turn—no ill will meant—
 my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought,
 fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
 {67}

Moonrise

WILL you glimmer on the sea?
 will you fling your spear-head
 on the shore?
 what note shall we pitch?
 we have a song,
 on the bank we share our arrows;
 the loosed string tells our note:
O flight,
 bring her swiftly to our song.
 she is great,
 we measure her by the pine trees.
 {68}

At Eleusis

WHAT they did,
 they did for Dionysos,
 for ecstasy’s sake:
now take the basket,
 think;
 think of the moment you count
 most foul in your life;
 conjure it,
 supplicate,
 pray to it;
 your face is bleak, you retract,
 you dare not remember it:
stop;
 it is too late.
 the next stands by the altar step,
 a child’s face yet not innocent,
 it will prove adequate, but you,
 I could have spelt your peril at the gate,
 yet for your mind’s sake,
 though you could not enter,
 wait.{69}
What they did,
 they did for Dionysos,
 for ecstasy’s sake:
Now take the basket basket—
 (ah face in a dream,
 did I not know your heart,
 I would falter,
 for each that fares onward
 is my child;
 ah can you wonder
 that my hands shake,
 that my knees tremble,
 I a mortal, set in the goddess’ place?)
 {70}

Fragment Forty-one

... thou flittest to Andromeda.

SAPPHO

1

AM I blind alas,
 am I blind?
 I too have followed
 her path.
 I too have bent at her feet.
 I too have wakened to pluck
 amaranth in the straight shaft,
 amaranth purple in the cup,
 scorched at the edge to white.
Am I blind?
 am I the less ready for her sacrifice?
 am I the less eager to give
 what she asks,
 she the shameless and radiant?
Am I quite lost,
 I towering above you and her glance,
 walking with swifter pace,{71}
 with clearer sight,
 with intensity
 beside which you two
 are as spent ash?
Nay, I give back to the goddess the gift
 she tendered me in a moment
 of great bounty.
 I return it. I lay it again
 on the white slab of her house,
 the beauty she cast out
 one moment, careless.
Nor do I cry out:
 “why did I stoop?
 why did I turn aside
 one moment from the rocks
 marking the sea-path?
 Aphrodite, shameless and radiant,
 have pity, turn, answer us.”
Ah no—though I stumble toward
 her altar-step,
 though my flesh is scorched and rent,
 shattered, cut apart,
 slashed open;{72}
 though my heels press my own wet life
 black, dark to purple,
 on the smooth, rose-streaked
 threshold of her pavement.

2

AM I blind alas, deaf too
 that my ears lost all this?
 nay, O my lover,
 shameless and still radiant,
 I tell you this:
I was not asleep,
 I did not lie asleep on those hot rocks
 while you waited.
 I was not unaware when I glanced
 out toward the sea
 watching the purple ships.
I was not blind when I turned.
 I was not indifferent when I strayed aside
 or loitered as we three went
 or seemed to turn a moment from the path
 for that same amaranth.{73}
I was not dull and dead when I fell
 back on our couch at night.
 I was not indifferent when I turned
 and lay quiet.
 I was not dead in my sleep.

3

Lady of all beauty,
 I give you this:
 say I have offered small sacrifice,
 say I am unworthy your touch,
 but say not:
 “she turned to some cold, calm god,
 silent, pitiful, in preference.”
Lady of all beauty,
 I give you this:
 say not:
 “she deserted my altar-step,
 the fire on my white hearth
 was too great,
 she fell back at my first glance.”
Lady, radiant and shameless,
 I have brought small wreaths,{74}
 (they were a child’s gift,)
 I have offered myrrh-leaf,
 crisp lentisk,
 I have laid rose-petal
 and white rock-rose from the beach.
But I give now a greater,
 I give life and spirit with this.
 I render a grace
 no one has dared to speak,
 lest men at your altar greet him
 as slave, callous to your art;
 I dare more than the singer
 offering her lute,
 the girl her stained veils,
 the woman her swathes of birth,
 or pencil and chalk,
 mirror and unguent box.
I offer more than the lad
 singing at your steps,
 praise of himself,
 his mirror his friend’s face,
 more than any girl,
 I offer you this:{75}
 (grant only strength
 that I withdraw not my gift,)
 I give you my praise and this:
 the love of my lover
 for his mistress.
 {76}

Telesila

IN Argos—that statue of her;
 at her feet the scroll of her
 love-poetry, in her hand a helmet.
WAR is a fevered god
 who takes alike
 maiden and king and clod,
 and yet another one,
 (ah withering peril!)
 deprives alike,
 with equal skill,
 alike indifferently,
 hoar spearsman of his shaft,
 wan maiden of her zone,
 even he,
 Love who is great War’s
 very over-lord.
War bent
 and kissed the forehead,
 yet Love swift,
 planted on chin
 and tenderest cyclamen lift
 of fragrant mouth,{77}
 fevered and honeyed breath,
 breathing o’er and o’er
 those tendrils of her hair,
 soft kisses
 like bright flowers.
Love took
 and laid the sweet,
 (being extravagant,)
 on lip and chin and cheek,
 but ah he failed
 even he,
 before the luminous eyes
 that dart
 no suave appeal,
 alas, impelling me
 to brave incontinent,
 grave Pallas’ high command.
And yet the mouth!
 ah Love ingratiate,
 how was it you,
 so poignant, swift and sure,
 could not have taken all
 and left me free,{78}
 free to desert the Argives,
 let them burn,
 free yet to turn
 and let the city fall:
 yea, let high War
 take all his vengeful way,
 for what am I?
 I cannot save nor stay
 the city’s fall.
War is a fevered god,
 (yet who has writ as she
 the power of Love?)
 War bent and kissed the forehead,
 that bright brow,
 ignored the chin
 and the sweet mouth,
 for that and the low laugh were his,
 Eros ingratiate,
 who sadly missed
 in all the kisses count,
 those eyebrows
 and swart eyes,
 O valiant one
 who bowed{79}
 falsely and vilely trapped us,
 traitorous lord.
And yet,
 (remembrance mocks,)
 should I have bent the maiden
 to a kiss?
 Ares the lover
 or enchanting Love?
 but had I moved
 I feared
 for that astute regard;
 for that bright vision,
 how might I have erred?
 I might have marred and swept
 another not so sweet
 into my exile;
 I might have kept a look
 recalling many and many a woman’s look,
 not this alone,
 astute, imperious, proud.
And yet
 I turn and ask
 again, again, again,{80}
 who march to death,
 what was it worth,
 reserve and pride and hurt?
 what is it worth
 to such as I
 who turn to meet
 the invincible Spartans’
 massed and serried host?
 what had it cost, a kiss?
 {81}

Fragment Sixty-eight

... even in the house of Hades.

SAPPHO

1

I ENVY you your chance of death,
 how I envy you this.
 I am more covetous of him
 even than of your glance,
 I wish more from his presence
 though he torture me in a grasp,
 terrible, intense.
Though he clasp me in an embrace
 that is set against my will
 and rack me with his measure,
 effortless yet full of strength,
 and slay me
 in that most horrible contest,
 still, how I envy you your chance.
Though he pierce me—imperious—
 iron—fever—dust—
 though beauty is slain
 when I perish,
 I envy you death.{82}
What is beauty to me?
 has she not slain me enough,
 have I not cried in agony of love,
 birth, hate,
 in pride crushed?
What is left after this?
 what can death loose in me
 after your embrace?
 your touch,
 your limbs are more terrible
 to do me hurt.
What can death mar in me
 that you have not?

2

What can death send me
 that you have not?
 you gathered violets,
 you spoke:
 “your hair is not less black,
 nor less fragrant,
 nor in your eyes is less light,
 your hair is not less sweet{83}
 with purple in the lift of lock;”
 why were those slight words
 and the violets you gathered
 of such worth?
How I envy you death;
 what could death bring,
 more black, more set with sparks
 to slay, to affright,
 than the memory of those first violets,
 the chance lift of your voice,
 the chance blinding frenzy
 as you bent?

3

So the goddess has slain me
 for your chance smile
 and my scarf unfolding
 as you stooped to it;
 so she trapped me
 with the upward sweep of your arm
 as you lifted the veil,
 and the swift smile and selfless.{84}
Could I have known?
 nay, spare pity,
 though I break,
 crushed under the goddess’ hate,
 though I fall beaten at last,
 so high have I thrust my glance
 up into her presence.
Do not pity me, spare that,
 but how I envy you
 your chance of death.
 {85}

Lethe

NOR skin nor hide nor fleece
 Shall cover you,
 Nor curtain of crimson nor fine
 Shelter of cedar-wood be over you,
 Nor the fir-tree
 Nor the pine.
Nor sight of whin nor gorse
 Nor river-yew,
 Nor fragrance of flowering bush,
 Nor wailing of reed-bird to waken you,
 Nor of linnet,
 Nor of thrush.
Nor word nor touch nor sight
 Of lover, you
 Shall long through the night but for this:
 The roll of the full tide to cover you
 Without question,
 Without kiss.
 {86}

Sitalkas

THOU art come at length
 more beautiful
 than any cool god
 in a chamber under
 Lycia’s far coast,
 than any high god
 who touches us not
 here in the seeded grass:
 aye, than Argestes
 scattering the broken leaves.
 {87}

Hermonax

GODS of the sea;
 Ino,
 leaving warm meads
 for the green, grey-green fastnesses
 of the great deeps;
 and Palemon,
 bright seeker of sea-shaft,
 hear me.
Let all whom the sea loves,
 come to its altar front,
 and I
 who can offer no other sacrifice to thee
 bring this.
Broken by great waves,
 the wavelets flung it here,
 this sea-gliding creature,
 this strange creature like a weed,
 covered with salt foam,
 torn from the hillocks of rock.
I, Hermonax,
 caster of nets,{88}
 risking chance,
 plying the sea craft,
 came on it.
Thus to sea god,
 gift of sea wrack;
 I, Hermonax, offer it
 to thee, Ino,
 and to Palemon.
 {89}

Orion Dead

(Artemis speaks.)

THE cornel-trees
 uplift from the furrows,
 the roots at their bases,
 strike lower through the barley-sprays.
So arise and face me.
 I am poisoned with the rage of song.
I once pierced the flesh
 of the wild deer,
 now I am afraid to touch
 the blue and the gold-veined hyacinths?
I will tear the full flowers
 and the little heads
 of the grape-hyacinths,
 I will strip the life from the bulb
 until the ivory layers
 lie like narcissus petals
 on the black earth.
Arise,
 lest I bend an ash-tree{90}
 into a taut bow,
 and slay—and tear
 all the roots from the earth.
The cornel-wood blazes
 and strikes through the barley-sprays
 but I have lost heart for this.
I break a staff,
 I break the tough branch.
 I know no light in the woods.
 I have lost pace with the wind.
 {91}

Charioteer

In that manner (archaic) he finished the statue of his brother. It stands mid-way in the hall of laurels ... between the Siphnians’ offering and the famous tripod of Naxos.

ONLY the priest
 of the inmost house
 has such height,
 only the faun
 in the glade
 such light, strong ankles,
 only the shade of the bay-tree
 such rare dark
 as the darkness
 caught under the fillet
 that covers your brow,
 only the blade
 of the ash-tree
 such length, such beauty
 as thou,
 O my brother;
 and only the gods
 have such love
 as I bring you;{92}
 but now,
 taut with love,
 more than any bright lover,
 I vowed
 to the innermost
 god of the temple,
 this vow.
God of beauty, I cried,
 as the four stood alert,
 awaiting the shout
 at the goal
 to be off;
 god of beauty,
 I cried to that god,
 if he merit the laurel,
 I dedicate all of my soul
 to you; to you
 all my strength and my power;
 if he merit the bay,
 I will fashion a statue
 of him, of my brother,
 out of thought,
 and the strength of my wrist
 and the fire of my brain;{93}
 I will strive night and day
 till I mould from the clay,
 till I strike from the bronze,
 till I conjure the rock,
 the chisle, the tool,
 to embody this image;
 an image to startle,
 to capture men’s hearts,
 to make all other bronze,
 all art to come after,
 a mock,
 all beauty to follow,
 a shell that is empty;
 I’ll stake all my soul
 on that beauty,
 till God shall awake
 again in men’s hearts,
 who have said he is dead,
 our King and our Lover.
Then the start,
 ah the sight,
 ah but dim, veiled with tears,
 (so Achilles must weep
 who finds his friend dead,){94}
 will he win?
 then the ring of the steel
 as two met at the goal,
 entangled and foul,
 misplaced at the start,
 who, who blunders? not you?
 what omens are set?
 alas, gods of the track,
 what ill wreaks its hate,
 speak it clear,
 let me know
 what evil, what fate?
 for the ring of sharp steel
 told two were in peril,
 two, two, one is you,
 already involved
 with the fears of defeat;
 two grazed;
 which must go?
As the wind,
 Althaia’s beauty came;
 as one after a cruel march,
 catches sight,
 toward the cold dusk,
 of the flower{95}
 that’s her name-sake,
 strayed apart
 toward the road-dust,
 from the stream
 in the wood-depth,
 so I in that darkness,
 my mouth bitter
 with sheer loss,
 took courage,
 my heart spoke,
 remembering how she spoke:
 “I will seek hour by hour
 fresh cones, resin
 and pine-flowers,
 flower of pine,
 laurel flower;
 I will pray:
 ‘let him come
 back to us,
 to our home,
 with the trophy of zeal,
 with the love and the proof
 of the favour of god;
 let him merit the bay.’
 (I expect it,){96}
 I myself on earth pray
 that our father may pray;
 his voice nearer the gods
 must carry beyond
 my mere mortal prayer:
 ‘O my father beyond,
 look down and be proud,
 ask this thing
 that we win,
 ask it straight of the gods.’”
Was he glad,
 did he know?
 for the strength
 of his prayer and her prayer
 met me now
 in one flame,
 all my head, all my brow
 was one flame,
 taut and beaten
 and faintly aglow,
 as the wine-cup
 encrusted and beaten and fine
 with the pattern of leaves,
 (so my brow,){97}
 yet metallic and cool,
 as the gold of the frigid metal
 that circles the heat
 of the wine.
Then the axel-tree cleft,
 not ours, gods be blest;
 now but three of you left,
 three alert and abreast,
 three—one streak of what fire?
 three straight for the goal:
 ah defeat,
 ah despair,
 still fate tricked our mares,
 for they swerved,
 flanks quivering and wet,
 as the wind
 at the mid-stretch
 caught and fluttered a white scarf;
 a veil shivering,
 only the fluttering
 of a white band,
 yet unnerved and champing,
 they turned,
 (only knowing the swards of Achæa){98}
 and he, O my love,
 that stranger,
 his stallions
 stark frenzied and black,
 had taken the inmost course,
 overtook,
 overcame,
 overleapt,
 and crowded you back.
O those horses
 we loved and we prized;
 I had gathered Alea mint
 and soft branch
 of the vine-stock in flower,
 I had stroked Elaphia;
 as one prays to a woman
 “be kind,”
 I had prayed Daphnaia;
 I had threatened Orea
 for her trick
 of out-pacing the three,
 even these,
 I had almost despaired
 at her fleet, proud pace,{99}
 O the four,
 O swift mares of Achæa.
Should I pray them again?
 or the gods of the track?
 or Althaia at home?
 or our father who died for Achæa?
 or our fathers beyond
 who had vanquished the east?
 should I threaten or pray?
The sun struck the ridge of white marble
 before me:
 white sun on white marble
 was black:
 the day was of ash,
 blind, unrepentant, despoiled,
 my soul cursed the race and the track,
 you had lost.
You, lost at the last?
Ah fools,
 so you threatened to win?
 ah fools,
 so you knew my brother?{100}
Greeks all,
 all crafty and feckless,
 even so, had you guessed
 what ran in his veins and mine,
 what blood of Achæa,
 had you dared,
 dared enter the contest,
 dared aspire with the rest?
You had gained,
 you outleapt them;
 a sudden, swift lift of the reins,
 a sudden, swift, taut grip of the reins,
 as suddenly loosed,
 you had gained.
When death comes
 I will see
 no vision of after,
 (as some count
 there may be an hereafter,)
 no thought of old lover,
 no girl, no woman,
 neither mother,
 nor yet my father{101}
 who died for Achæa,
 neither God with the harp
 and the sun on His brow,
 but thou,
 O my brother.
When death comes,
 instead of a vision,
 (I will catch it in bronze)
 you will stand
 as you stood at the end,
 (as the herald announced it,
 proclaiming aloud,
 “Achæa has won,”)
 in-reining them now,
 so quiet,
 not turning to answer
 the shout of the crowd.
 {102}

The Look-out

BETTER the wind, the sea, the salt
 in your eyes,
 than this, this, this.
You grumble and sweat;
 my ears are acute
 to catch your complaint,
 almost the sea’s roar is less
 than your constant threat
 of “back and back to the shore,
 and let us rest.”
You grumble and curse your luck
 and I hear:
 “O Lynceus,
 aloft by the prow,
 his head on his arms,
 his eyes half closed,
 almost asleep,
 to watch for a rock,
 (and hardly ever we need
 his ‘to left’ or ‘to right’)
 let Lynceus have my part,
 let me rest like Lynceus.{103}”
“Rest like Lynceus!”
 I’d change my fate for yours,
 the very least,
 I’d take an oar with the rest.
“Like Lynceus,”
 as if my lot were the best.
O God, if I could speak,
 if I could taunt the lot
 of the wretched crew,
 with my fate, my work.
But I may not,
 I may not tell
 of the forms that pass and pass,
 of that constant old, old face
 that leaps from each wave
 to wait underneath the boat
 in the hope that at last she’s lost.
Could I speak,
 I would tell of great mountains
 that flow, great weeds
 that float and float
 to tangle our oars{104}
 if I fail “to left, to right;”
 where the dolphin leaps
 you saw a sign from the god,
 I saw why he leapt from the deep.
“To right, to left;”
 it is easy enough
 to lean on the prow, half asleep,
 and you think,
 “no work for Lynceus.”
 No work?
If only you’d let me take an oar,
 if only my back could break with the hurt,
 if the sun could blister my feet,
 pain, pain that I might forget
 the face that just this moment
 passed through the prow
 when you said, “asleep.”
Many and many a sight
 if I could speak,
 many and many tales I’d tell,
 many and many a struggle,
 many a death,{105}
 many and many my hurts
 and my pain so great,
 I’d gladly die
 if I did not love the quest.
Grumble and swear and curse,
 brother, god and the boat,
 and the great waves,
 but could you guess
 what strange terror lurks in the sea-depth,
 you’d thank the gods for the ship,
 the timber and giant oars, god-like,
 and the god-like quest.
If you could see as I,
 what lurks in the sea-depth,
 you’d pray to the ropes
 and the solid timbers
 like god, like god;
you’d pray to the oars and your work,
 you’d pray and thank
 the boat for her very self;
 timber and oar and plank
 and sail and the sail-ropes,
 these are beautiful things and great.{106}
But Lynceus at the prow
 has nothing to do but wait
 till we reach a shoal or some rocks
 and then he has only to lift his arms,
 right, left;
 O brother,
 I’d change my place
 for the worst seat
 in the cramped bench,
 for an oar, for an hour’s toil,
 for sweat and the solid floor.
I’d change my place
 as I sit with eyes half closed,
 if only I could see just the ring
 cut by the boat,
 if only I could see just the water,
 the crest and the broken crest,
 the bit of weed that rises on the crest,
 the dolphin only when he leaps.
But Lynceus,
 though they cannot guess
 the hurt, though they do not thank{107}
 the oars for the dead peace
 of heart and brain worn out,
 you must wait,
 alert, alert, alert.
 {108}

Odyssey

MUSE,
 tell me of this man of wit,
 who roamed long years
 after he had sacked
 Troy’s sacred streets.
ALL the rest
 who had escaped death,
 returned,
 fleeing battle and the sea;
 only Odysseus,
 captive of a goddess,
 desperate and home-sick,
 thought but of his wife and palace;
 but Calypso,
 that nymph and spirit,
 yearning in the furrowed rock-shelf,
 burned
 and sought to be his mistress;
 but years passed,
 the time was ripe,
 the gods decreed,
 (although traitors plot{109}
 to betray him in his own court,)
 he was to return
 to Ithaca;
 and all the gods pitied him;
 but Poseidon
 steadfast to the last
 hated
 god-like Odysseus.
The sea-god visited
 a distant folk,
 Ethiopians,
 who at the edge of earth
 are divided into two parts,
 (half watch the sun rise,
 half, the sun set,)
 there the hecatomb
 of slain sheep and oxen
 await his revels:
 and while he rejoiced,
 seated at the feast,
 the rest of the gods
 gathered in the palace of Olympian Zeus;
 and the father of men and of gods spoke thus:{110}
 (for he remembered bright Egisthus,
 slain of Agamemnon’s child,
 great Orestes:)
O you spirits,
 how men hate the gods,
 for they say evil comes of us,
 when they themselves,
 by their own wickedness,
 court peril
 beyond their fate;
 so Egisthus, defiant,
 sought Agamemnon’s wife
 and slew Agamemnon
 returning to his own palace,
 though we ourselves
 sent bright Hermes,
 slayer of Argos,
 to warn him
 lest Orestes,
 attaining to man’s estate,
 demand his inheritance
 and take vengeance:
 we forbade him to strike the king,
 we warned him to respect his wife:{111}
 but could Hermes
 of gracious aspect,
 subtle with kindly speech,
 thus avert the foul work?
Then the grey-eyed Athene,
 the goddess, spoke:
 O my father, Kronos begot,
 first among the great,
 his death at least was just,
 so may all perish who err thus;
 but my heart is rent
 for the prudent Odysseus,
 who, exiled from his friends,
 is kept too long distressed
 in an island, sea swept,
 in the sea midst,
 a forest island,
 haunt of a spirit,
 child of Atlas,
 crafty of thought,
 who knows the sea depth,
 who supports the high pillars
 which cut sky from earth;
 it is his child{112}
 who keeps Odysseus
 lamenting with broken heart,
 ceaseless to tempt him
 with soft and tender speech,
 that he forget Ithaca;
 but Odysseus,
 yearning to see but the smoke
 drift above his own house,
 prefers death;
 your heart, is it not touched,
 O Olympian?
 did not Odysseus please you
 when he made sacrifice
 before the Grecian ships
 in great Troy?
 why are you angry, Zeus?
Then Zeus,
 keeper of the clouds,
 answering her, spoke:
 O my child,
 what quaint words
 have sped your lips,
 for how could I forget
 the god-like Odysseus,{113}
 a spirit surpassing men,
 first to make sacrifice
 to the deathless
 in the sky-space?
 but Poseidon
 girder of earth,
 though yet he spares his life,
 nurtures unending hate;
 he goads him from place to place
 because of the Cyclops
 blinded of Odysseus,
 Polyphemus, half-god,
 greatest of the Cyclops,
 whom the nymph Thoosa,
 child of Phorcys,
 king of the waste sea, begot
 when she lay with Poseidon
 among the shallow rocks:
 but come,
 let us plot
 to reinstate Odysseus,
 and Poseidon must abandon his wrath;
 for what can one god accomplish,
 striving alone
 to defy all the deathless?{114}
Then the grey-eyed Athene,
 the goddess, spoke:
 O my father, Kronos begot,
 first among the great,
 if then it seems just
 to the highest,
 that Odysseus return
 to his own house,
 let us swiftly send
 Hermes, slayer of Argos,
 your attendant,
 that he state
 to the fair-haired nymph,
 our irrevocable wish,
 that Odysseus,
 valiant of heart,
 be sent back:
 and I will depart to Ithaca,
 to incite his son,
 to put courage in his heart,
 that he call to the market place
 the long-haired Greeks
 and shut his gates
 to the pretendants
 who ceaselessly devour his flocks,{115}
 sheep and horned oxen
 of gentle pace:
 that he strive
 for his father’s sake
 and gain favour
 in men’s thoughts,
 I will send him to Sparta,
 to Pylos’ sandy waste.
She spoke
 and about her feet
 clasped bright sandals,
 gold-wrought, imperishable,
 which lift her above sea,
 across the land stretch,
 wind-like,
 like the wind breath.
 {116}

From the Masque

Hyacinth

1

YOUR anger charms me,
 and yet all the time
 I think of chaste, slight hands,
 veined snow;
 snow craters filled
 with first wild-flowerlets;
 glow of ice-gentian,
 whitest violet;
 snow craters
 and the ice ridge
 spilling light;
 dawn and the lover
 chaste dawn leaves bereft—
 I think of these
 and snow-cooled Phrygian wine.
Your anger charms me subtly
 and I know
 that you would take
 the still hands{117}
 where I’d rest;
 you would despoil
 for very joy of theft;
 list, lady,
 I would give you one last hint:
 quench your red mouth
 in some cold forest lake,
 cover your russet locks
 with arum leaf,
 quench out the colour,
 still the fevered glance,
 cover your want,
 your fire insatiate,
 I can not match your fervour,
 nay, nor still my ache
 with any
 but white hands inviolate.

2

Take the red spoil
 of grape and pomegranate,
 the red camellia,
 the most, most red rose;
 take all the garden spills,
 inveterate,{118}
 prodigal spender
 just as summer goes,
 the red scales of the deep in-folded spice,
 the Indian, Persian and the Syrian pink,
 their scent undaunted
 even in that faint,
 unmistakable fragrance
 of the late tuberose,
 (heavy its petals,
 eye-lids of dark eyes
 that open languorous
 and more languorous close—the east,
 further than scent
 of our wind-smitten isle,)
 take these:
O lady, take them,
 prodigal
 I cull and offer this and this and these
 last definite whorls
 of clustered peonies,
 the last, the first
 that stained our stainless ledge
 of blue and white
 and the white foam of sea,{119}
 rocks,
 and that strait ledge
 whiter than the rock
 the Parians break
 from their enchanted hill;
 take, lady,
 but leave me with my weed and shell
 and those slight, hovering gull-wings that recall
 silver of far Hymettus’ asphodel.

3

Take all
 for you have taken everything,
 but do not let me see you taking this;
 Adonis lying spent with Venus’ care,
 Adonis dying were a lesser ache
 than this,
 to have even your slightest breath
 breathe in the crystal air
 where he takes breath.
Take all
 for you have taken everything,
 save the broad ledge of sea{120}
 which no man takes,
 take all
 for you have taken mirth and ease
 and all the small delights
 of simple poets,
 the lilt of rhyme,
 the sway and lift and fall,
 the first spring gold
 your fire has scorched to ash,
 the fresh winds
 that go halt
 where you have passed,
 the Tyrian iris
 I so greatly loved,
 its dark head speared
 through its wet spray of leaves.
Take all,
 but ah, lady, a fool, a poet
 may even know when you have taken all:
 up on the mountain slope
 one last flower cleaves
 to the wet marge of ice,
 the blue of snow,
 keep all your riot{121}
 in the swales below,
 of grape and autumn,
 take all, taking these,
 for you and autumn yet
 can not prevail
 against that flame, that flower,
 (ice, spark or jewel,)
 the cyclamen,
 parting its white cyclamen leaves.

4

O, I am ill with dust
 as you with stain,
 O, I am worthless,
 weary, world-bedragged,
 nevertheless to mountains
 still the rain
 falls on the tangle
 of dead under-brush,
 freshens the loam,
 the earth and broken leaves
 for that hoar-frost
 of later star or flower,{122}
 the fragile host
 of Greek anemones.
Say I am little meet
 to call the youth,
 say I have little magic
 to enchant,
 but is that reason
 why your flaring will
 should sweep and scorch,
 should lap and seethe and fill
 with last red flame
 the tender ditch and runnel
 which the spring freshet
 soon must fill again?
White violets
 have no place
 on your hot brow;
 how can I bring you
 what the spring must bring?
 what can I offer?
 lush and heady mallow?
 the fire-grass
 or the serpent-spotted{123}
 fire-flower?
 O take them,
 for I stand a ruinous cloud
 between you
 and the chaste uplifted hill.
O take them swiftly
 and more swiftly go,
 for spring is distant yet,
 for spring is far;
 you have your tense, short space
 of blazing sun,
 your melons, vines,
 your terraces of fruit;
 now all you have,
 all, all I gladly give
 who long but for the ridge,
 the crest and hollow,
 the lift and fall,
 the reach and distant ledge
 of the sun-smitten,
 wind-indented snow.
 {124}

The bird-choros of Ion

BIRDS from Parnassus,
 swift
 you dart
 from the loftiest peaks;
 you hover, dip,
 you sway and perch
 undaunted on the gold-set cornice;
 you eagle,
 god’s majestic legate,
 who tear, who strike
 song-birds in mid-flight,
 my arrow whistles toward you,
 swift
 be off;
ah drift,
 ah drift
 so soft, so light,
 your scarlet foot so deftly placed
 to waft you neatly
 to the pavement,
 swan, swan{125}
 and do you really think
 your song
 that tunes the harp of Helios,
 will save you
 from the arrow-flight?
 turn back,
 back
 to the lake of Delos;
lest all the song notes
 pause and break
 across a blood-stained throat
 gone songless,
 turn back,
 back
 ere it be too late,
 to wave-swept Delos.
Alas, and still another,
 what?
 you’d place your mean nest
 in the cornice?
 sing, sing
 my arrow-string,
 tell to the thief{126}
 that plaits its house
 for fledglings
 in the god’s own house,
 that still the Alpheus
 whispers sweet
 to lure
 the birdlets to the place,
 that still the Isthmus
 shines with forests;
 on the white statues
 must be found
 no straw nor litter
 of bird-down,
 Phœbos must have his portal fair;
and yet, O birds,
 though this my labour
 is set,
 though this my task is clear,
 though I must slay you,
 I, god’s servant,
 I who take here
 my bread and life
 and sweep the temple,
 still I swear{127}
 that I would save you,
 birds or spirits,
 winged songs
 that tell to men god’s will;
still, still
 the Alpheus whispers clear
 to lure the bird-folk
 to its waters,
 ah still
 the Isthmus
 blossoms fair;
 lest all the song notes
 pause and break
 across a blood-stained throat
 gone songless,
 turn back,
 back
 ere it be too late,
 to wave-swept Delos.