Hymen Part 4

SEA HEROES

Crash on crash of the sea, straining to wreck men, sea-boards, continents, raging against the world, furious, stay at last, for against your fury and your mad fight, the line of heroes stands, G.o.d-like:

Akroneos, Oknolos, Elatreus, helm-of-boat, loosener-of-helm, dweller-by-sea, Nauteus, sea-man, Prumneos, stern-of-s.h.i.+p, Agchialos, sea-girt, Elatreus, oar-shaft: lover-of-the-sea, lover-of-the-sea-ebb, lover-of-the-swift-sea, Ponteus, Proreus, Ooos: Anabesneos, one caught between wave-shock and wave-shock: Eurualos, broad sea-wrack, like Ares, man's death, and Naubolides, best in shape, of all first in size: Phaekous, seas' thunderbolt-- ah, crash on crash of great names-- man-tamer, man's-help, perfect Laodamos: and last the sons of great Alkinoos, Laodamos, Halios and G.o.d-like Clytomeos.

Of all nations, of all cities, of all continents, she is favoured among the rest, for she gives men as great as the sea, valorous to the fight, to battle against the elements and evil: greater even than the sea, they live beyond wrack and death of cities, and each G.o.d-like name spoken is as a shrine in a G.o.dless place.

But to name you, we reverent are breathless, weak with pain and old loss, and exile and despair-- our hearts break but to speak your name, Oknaleos-- and may we but call you in the feverish wrack of our storm-strewn beach, Eretmeos, and our hurt is quiet and our hearts tamed, as the sea may yet be tamed, and we vow to float great s.h.i.+ps, named for each hero, and oar-blades, cut out of mountain-trees as such men might have shaped: Eretmeos and the sea is swept, baffled by the lordly shape, Akroneos has pines for his s.h.i.+p's keel; to love, to mate the sea?

Ah there is Ponteos, the very deeps roar, hailing you dear-- they clamour to Ponteos, and to Proeos leap, swift to kiss, to curl, to creep, lover to mistress.

What wave, what love, what foam, for Ooos who moves swift as the sea?

Ah stay, my heart, the weight of lovers, of loneliness drowns me, alas that their very names so press to break my heart with heart-sick weariness, what would they be, the very G.o.ds, rearing their mighty length beside the unharvested sea?

"NOT HONEY"

Not honey, not the plunder of the bee from meadow or sand-flower or mountain bush; from winter-flower or shoot born of the later heat: not honey, not the sweet stain on the lips and teeth: not honey, not the deep plunge of soft belly and the clinging of the gold-edged pollen-dusted feet.

Not so-- though rapture blind my eyes, and hunger crisp dark and inert my mouth, not honey, not the south, not the tall stalk of red twin-lilies, nor light branch of fruit tree caught in flexible light branch.

Not honey, not the south; ah flower of purple iris, flower of white, or of the iris, withering the gra.s.s-- for fleck of the sun's fire, gathers such heat and power, that shadow-print is light, cast through the petals of the yellow iris flower.

Not iris--old desire--old pa.s.sion-- old forgetfulness--old pain-- not this, nor any flower, but if you turn again, seek strength of arm and throat, touch as the G.o.d; neglect the lyre-note; knowing that you shall feel, about the frame, no trembling of the string but heat, more pa.s.sionate of bone and the white sh.e.l.l and fiery tempered steel.

EVADNE

I first tasted under Apollo's lips love and love sweetness, I Evadne; my hair is made of crisp violets or hyacinth which the wind combs back across some rock shelf; I Evadne was mate of the G.o.d of light.

His hair was crisp to my mouth as the flower of the crocus, across my cheek, cool as the silver cress on Erotos bank; between my chin and throat his mouth slipped over and over.

Still between my arm and shoulder, I feel the brush of his hair, and my hands keep the gold they took as they wandered over and over that great arm-full of yellow flowers.

SONG

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 distill 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.

WHY HAVE YOU SOUGHT

Why have you sought the Greeks, Eros, when such delight was yours in the far depth of sky: there you could note bright ivory take colour where she bent her face, and watch fair gold shed gold on radiant surface of porch and pillar: and ivory and bright gold, polished and l.u.s.trous grow faint beside that wondrous flesh and print of her foot-hold: Love, why do you tempt the Grecian porticoes?

Here men are bent with thought and women waste fair moments gathering lint and p.r.i.c.king coloured stuffs to mar their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, while she, adored, wastes not her fingers, worn of fire and sword, wastes not her touch on linen and fine thread, wastes not her head in thought and pondering, Love, why have you sought the horde of spearsmen, why the tent Achilles pitched beside the river-ford?

THE WHOLE WHITE WORLD

The whole white world is ours, and the world, purple with rose-bays, bays, bush on bush, group, thicket, hedge and tree, dark islands in a sea of grey-green olive or wild white-olive, cut with the sudden cypress shafts, in cl.u.s.ters, two or three, or with one slender, single cypress-tree.

Slid from the hill, as crumbling snow-peaks slide, citron on citron fill the valley, and delight waits till our spirits tire of forest, grove and bush and purple flower of the laurel-tree.

Yet not one wearies, joined is each to each in happiness complete with bush and flower: ours is the wind-breath at the hot noon-hour, ours is the bee's soft belly and the blush of the rose-petal, lifted, of the flower.

PHAEDRA

Think, O my soul, of the red sand of Crete; think of the earth; the heat burnt fissures like the great backs of the temple serpents; think of the world you knew; as the tide crept, the land burned with a lizard-blue where the dark sea met the sand.

Think, O my soul-- what power has struck you blind-- is there no desert-root, no forest-berry pine-pitch or knot of fir known that can help the soul caught in a force, a power, pa.s.sionless, not its own?

So I scatter, so implore G.o.ds of Crete, summoned before with slighter craft; ah, hear my prayer:

Grant to my soul the body that it wore, trained to your thought, that kept and held your power, as the petal of black poppy, the opiate of the flower.

For art undreamt in Crete, strange art and dire, in counter-charm prevents my charm limits my power: pine-cone I heap, grant answer to my prayer.

No more, my soul-- as the black cup, sullen and dark with fire, burns till beside it, noon's bright heat is withered, filled with dust-- and into that noon-heat grown drab and stale, suddenly wind and thunder and swift rain, till the scarlet flower is wrecked in the slash of the white hail.

The poppy that my heart was, formed to blind all mortals, made to strike and gather hearts like flame upon an altar, fades and shrinks, a red leaf drenched and torn in the cold rain.

SHE CONTRASTS WITH HERSELF HIPPOLYTA

Can flame beget white steel-- ah no, it could not take within my reins its shelter; steel must seek steel, or hate make out of joy a whet-stone for a sword; sword against flint, Theseus sought Hippolyta; she yielded not nor broke, sword upon stone, from the clash leapt a spark, Hippolytus, born of hate.