From Beyond the Mountains (1951)

From HERMAIOS

I Chorus:

The twilight has gone like breath.

In the sharp starlight the snow

Stretches endlessly away

Into the dark at the foot

Of the mountains, like the white sands

On all the beaches of the sea.

The wind comes and goes with a sound

Like a vast concourse of people.

- - -

Kalliope:

I am tired of the long cold, too.

And this thin air burns my nostrils,

Parches my skin and dries my hair.

There’s never enough to breathe here.

The air is too thin to sing with,

And poor stuff for the gulp of love.

Even the stars burn without oil,

Like burning icicles. . . .

Snow. The wind is blowing the snow.

It’s not living like fallen snow.

It’s fine and dry like marble dust.

Soon it will drift over the roofs,

And seal us in for the winter.

I suppose it has a secret

Music, too. It has a sterile

Sort of geometry. I know

The one thin tune of its silence.

I don’t find it interesting.

She goes out.

From BERENIKE

I Chorus:

The wind in the mountains has stopped.

The silence comes back like a thought.

The frozen water is still,

But the pulsating moonlight

Makes ripples in the clear ice.

Haunted by consequence, all

Existence is uneasy. . . .

Berenike:

Demetrios

Is dead.

She points. Menander looks at him in silence for a while.

Menander:

He seems to be with friends.

They get along with each other.

. . . I wish I could

Touch them and say, “Live, run away,

Hide in the mountains. For thirty

Years you can eat mutton and loll

Beside meadow streams blowing

Grass whistles at the passing clouds.”

Berenike:

He who buys a dried fish so that

He can set it free, does not know

The distinctions of life and death.

- - -

The dance takes definition here.

I Chorus:

Light falls through the empty heaven.

Stars drift and rock on the waves of time.

The transparent earth curdles to stone.

Light floods the rock. Water is born

From stone. Air springs from the wave’s spray.

Fire kindles in the light-filled air.

Light curdles in the virgin womb.

The earth turns to a crystal ball.

The child is at the gates. The waves

Of the endless sea grow still.

Light

Shines, a perfect disc reflected

In infinite calm.

Light narrows

To a point.

The point of light gives birth

To an illimitable sphere

Of rainbows flowing forever.

The dance closes during the next six lines.

II Chorus:

The star climbs near the zenith.

Soon it will stand above them,

Where they wait in the desert.

The whirling equinoxes

Close their term.

The Great Year ends.

The heavens begin again.

But we will not begin.

Time

Is all gone for the Greeks now.