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.
The hard sand breaks,
And the grains of it
Are clear as wine.
Far off over the leagues of it,
The wind,
Playing on the wide shore,
Piles little ridges,
And the great waves
Break over it.
But more than the many-foamed ways
Of the sea,
I know him
Of the triple path-ways,
Hermes,
Who awaiteth.
Dubious,
Facing three ways,
Welcoming wayfarers,
He whom the sea-orchard
Shelters from the west,
From the east
Weathers sea-wind;
Fronts the great dunes.
Wind rushes
Over the dunes,
And the coarse, salt-crusted grass
Answers.
Heu,
It whips round my ankles!
Small is
This white stream,
Flowing below ground
From the poplar-shaded hill,
But the water is sweet.
Apples on the small trees
Are hard,
Too small,
Too late ripened
By a desperate sun
That struggles through sea-mist.
The boughs of the trees
Are twisted
By many bafflings;
Twisted are
The small-leafed boughs.
But the shadow of them
Is not the shadow of the mast head
Nor of the torn sails.
Hermes, Hermes,
The great sea foamed,
Gnashed its teeth about me;
But you have waited,
Where sea-grass tangles with
Shore-grass.
Keeper-of-Orchards
I saw the first pear
As it fell.
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness!)
And I fell prostrate,
Crying,
Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms;
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees!
The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.
O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring thee an offering;
Do thou, alone unbeautiful
(Son of the god),
Spare us from loveliness.
The fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
The grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken fig,
And quinces untouched,
I bring thee as offering.
(After Joannes Baptista Amaltheus)
Bear me to Dictaeus,
And to the steep slopes;
To the river Erymanthus.
I choose spray of dittany,
Cyperum frail of flower,
Buds of myrrh,
All-healing herbs,
Close pressed in calathes.
For she lies panting,
Drawing sharp breath,
Broken with harsh sobs,
She, Hyella,
Whom no god pitieth.
Dryads,
Haunting the groves,
Nereids,
Who dwell in wet caves,
For all the whitish leaves of olive-branch,
And early roses,
And ivy wreathes, woven gold berries,
Which she once brought to your altars,
Bear now ripe fruits from Arcadia,
And Assyrian wine
To shatter her fever.
The light of her face falls from its flower,
As a hyacinth,
Hidden in a far valley,
Perishes upon burnt grass.
Pales,
Bring gifts,
Bring your Phoenician stuffs,
And do you, fleet-footed nymphs,
Bring offerings,
Illyrian iris,
And a branch of shrub,
And frail-headed poppies.
Gods of the sea;
Ino,
Leaving warm meads
For the green, grey-green fastnesses
Of the great deeps;
And Palemon,
Bright striker of sea-shaft,
Hear me.
Let all whom the sea loveth,
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,
Risking chance,
Plying the sea craft,
Came on it.
Thus to sea god
Cometh gift of sea wrack;
I, Hermonax, offer it
To thee, Ino,
And to Palemon.
(After the Greek)
The golden one is gone from the banquets;
She, beloved of Atimetus,
The swallow, the bright Homonoea:
Gone the dear chatterer.
Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?
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.
The light beats upon me.
I am startled—
A split leaf crackles on the paved floor—
I am anguished—defeated.
A slight wind shakes the seed-pods.
My thoughts are spent
As the black seeds.
My thoughts tear me.
I dread their fever—
I am scattered in its whirl.
I am scattered like
The hot shrivelled seeds.
The shrivelled seeds
Are spilt on the path.
The grass bends with dust.
The grape slips
Under its crackled leaf:
Yet far beyond the spent seed-pods,
And the blackened stalks of mint,
The poplar is bright on the hill,
The poplar spreads out,
Deep-rooted among trees.
O poplar, you are great
Among the hill-stones,
While I perish on the path
Among the crevices of the rocks.
So you have swept me back—
I who could have walked with the live souls
above the earth,
I who could have slept among the live flowers
at last.
So for your arrogance
and your ruthlessness
I am swept back
where dead lichens drip
dead cinders upon moss of ash.
So for your arrogance
I am broken at last,
I who had lived unconscious,
who was almost forgot.
If you had let me wait
I had grown from listlessness
into peace—
if you had let me rest with the dead,
I had forgot you
and the past.
Here only flame upon flame
and black among the red sparks,
streaks of black and light
grown colourless.
Why did you turn back,
that hell should be reinhabited
of myself thus
swept into nothingness?
Why did you turn,
why did you glance back—
why did you hesitate for that moment,
why did you bend your face
caught with the flame of the upper earth
above my face?
What was it that crossed my face
with the light from yours
and your glance?
What was it you saw in my face—
the light of your own face,
the fire of your own presence?
What had my face to offer
but reflex of the earth—
hyacinth colour
caught from the raw fissure in the rock
where the light struck,
and the colour of azure crocuses
and the bright surface of gold crocuses
and of the wind-flower,
swift in its veins as lightning
and as white.
Saffron from the fringe of the earth,
wild saffron that has bent
over the sharp edge of earth,
all the flowers that cut through the earth,
all, all the flowers are lost.
Everything is lost,
everything is crossed with black,
black upon black
and worse than black—
this colourless light.
Fringe upon fringe
of blue crocuses,
crocuses, walled against blue of themselves,
blue of that upper earth,
blue of the depth upon depth of flowers—
lost!
Flowers—
if I could have taken once my breath of them,
enough of them,
more than earth,
even than of the upper earth,
had passed with me
beneath the earth!
If I could have caught up from the earth,
the whole of the flowers of the earth,
if once I could have breathed into myself
the very golden crocuses
and the red,
and the very golden hearts of the first saffron,
the whole of the golden mass,
the whole of the great fragrance,
I could have dared the loss.
So for your arrogance
and your ruthlessness
I have lost the earth
and the flowers of the earth,
and the live souls above the earth,
and you who passed across the light
and reached
ruthless—
you who have your own light,
who are to yourself a presence,
who need no presence.
Yet for all your arrogance
and your glance,
I tell you this—
such loss is no loss,
such terror, such coils and strands and pitfalls
of blackness,
such terror
is no loss.
Hell is no worse than your earth
above the earth,
hell is no worse—
no—nor your flowers
nor your veins of light
nor your presence,
a loss.
My hell is no worse than yours
though you pass among the flowers and speak
with the spirits above earth.
Against the black
I have more fervour
than you in all the splendour of that place,
against the blackness
and the stark grey
I have more light!
And the flowers—
if I should tell you,
you would turn from your own fit paths
toward hell—
turn again and glance back
and I would sink into a place
even more terrible than this.
At least I have the flowers of myself
and my thoughts—no god can take that!
I have the fervour of myself for a presence
and my own spirit for light.
And my spirit with its loss
knows this:
though small against the black,
small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost.
Before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
for the dead to pass.
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
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?
Oh, 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,
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 or nerve or tendon;
So my mind waits
To grapple with my mind—
Yet I am 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
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?
You are as gold
As the half-ripe grain
That merges to gold again,
As white as the white rain
That beats through
The half-opened flowers
Of the great flower tufts
Thick on the black limbs
Of an Illyrian apple bough.
Can honey distil such fragrance
As your bright hair?—
For your face is as fair as rain,
Yet as rain that lies clear
On white honey-comb
Lends radiance to the white wax,
So your hair on your brow
Casts light for a shadow.
I should have thought
In a dream you would have brought
Some lovely perilous thing:
Orchids piled in a great sheath,
As who would say, in a dream,
“I send you this,
Who left the blue veins
Of your throat unkissed.”
Why was it that your hands,
That never took mine—
Your hands that I could see
Drift over the orchid heads
So carefully;
Your hands, so fragile, sure to lift
So gently, the fragile flower stuff—
Ah, ah, how was it
You never sent, in a dream,
The very form, the very scent,
Not heavy, not sensuous,
But perilous—perilous!—
Of orchids, piled in a great sheath,
And folded underneath on a bright scroll,
Some word:
Flower sent to flower;
For white hands the lesser white,
Less lovely, of flower leaf.
Or,
Lover to lover—no kiss,
No touch, but forever and ever this!