Hymen Part 5

What did she think when all her strength was twisted for his bearing; did it break, even within her sheltered heart, a song, some whispered note, distant and faint as this:

_Love that I bear within my breast how is my armour melted how my heart: as an oak-tree that keeps beneath the snow, the young bark fresh till the spring cast from off its shoulders the white snow so does my armour melt._

_Love that I bear within my heart, O speak; tell how beneath the serpent-spotted sh.e.l.l, the cygnets wait, how the soft owl opens and flicks with pride, eye-lids of great bird-eyes, when underneath its breast the owlets shrink and turn._

You have the power, (then did she say) Artemis, benignity to grant forgiveness that I gave no quarter to an enemy who cast his armour on the forest-moss, and took, unmatched in an uneven contest, Hippolyta who relented not, returned and sought no kiss.

Then did she pray: Artemis, grant that no flower be grafted alien on a broken stalk, no dark flame-laurel on the stricken crest of a wild mountain-poplar; grant in my thought, I never yield but wait, entreating cold white river, mountain-pool and salt: let all my veins be ice, until they break (strength of white beach, rock of mountain land, forever to you, Artemis, dedicate) from out my reins, those small, cold hands.

SHE REBUKES HIPPOLYTA

Was she so chaste?

Swift and a broken rock clatters across the steep shelf of the mountain slope, sudden and swift and breaks as it clatters down into the hollow breach of the dried water-course: far and away (through fire I see it, and smoke of the dead, withered stalks of the wild cistus-brush) Hippolyta, frail and wild, galloping up the slope between great boulder and rock and group and cl.u.s.ter of rock.

Was she so chaste, (I see it, sharp, this vision, and each fleck on the horse's flanks of foam, and bridle and bit, silver, and the straps, wrought with their perfect art, and the sun, striking athwart the silver-work, and the neck, strained forward, ears alert, and the head of a girl flung back and her throat.)

Was she so chaste-- (Ah, burn my fire, I ask out of the smoke-ringed darkness enclosing the flaming disk of my vision) I ask for a voice to answer: was she chaste?

Who can say-- the broken ridge of the hills was the line of a lover's shoulder, his arm-turn, the path to the hills, the sudden leap and swift thunder of mountain boulders, his laugh.

She was mad-- as no priest, no lover's cult could grant madness; the wine that entered her throat with the touch of the mountain rocks was white, intoxicant: she, the chaste, was betrayed by the glint of light on the hills, the granite splinter of rocks, the touch of the stone where heat melts toward the shadow-side of the rocks.

EGYPT

(TO E. A. POE)

Egypt had cheated us, for Egypt took through guile and craft our treasure and our hope, Egypt had maimed us, offered dream for life, an opiate for a kiss, and death for both.

White poison flower we loved and the black spike of an ungarnered bush-- (a spice--or without taste-- we wondered--then we asked others to take and sip and watched their death) Egypt we loved, though hate should have withheld our touch.

Egypt had given us knowledge, and we took, blindly, through want of heart, what Egypt brought; knowing all poison, what was that or this, more or less perilous, than this or that.

We pray you, Egypt, by what perverse fate, has poison brought with knowledge, given us this-- not days of trance, shadow, fore-doom of death, but pa.s.sionate grave thought, belief enhanced, ritual returned and magic;

Even in the uttermost black pit of the forbidden knowledge, wisdom's glance, the grey eyes following in the mid-most desert-- great shaft of rose, fire shed across our path, upon the face grown grey, a light, h.e.l.las re-born from death.

HELIOS

_Helios makes all things right:-- night brands and chokes as if destruction broke over furze and stone and crop of myrtle-shoot and field-wort, destroyed with flakes of iron, the bracken-stems, where tender roots were sown, blight, chaff and waste of darkness to choke and drown._

_A curious G.o.d to find, yet in the end faithful; bitter, the Kyprian's feet-- ah flecks of whited clay, great hero, vaunted lord-- ah petal, dust and wind-fall on the ground--queen awaiting queen._

_Better the weight, they tell, the helmet's beaten sh.e.l.l, Athene's riven steel, caught over the white skull, Athene sets to heal the few who merit it._

_Yet even then, what help, should he not turn and note the height of forehead and the mark of conquest, draw near and try the helmet; to left--reset the crown Athene weighted down, or break with a light touch mayhap the steel set to protect; to slay or heal._

_A treacherous G.o.d, they say, yet who would wait to test justice or worth or right, when through a fetid night is wafted faint and nearer-- then straight as point of steel to one who courts swift death, scent of Hesperidean orange-spray._

PRAYER

White, O white face-- from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands, nor strength to praise, only defeat and silence; though we lift hands, disenchanted, of small strength, nor raise branch of the laurel or the light of torch, but fold the garment on the riven locks, yet hear, all-merciful, and touch the fore-head, dim, unlit of pride and thought, Mistress--be near!

Give back the glamour to our will, the thought; give back the tool, the chisel; once we wrought things not unworthy, sandal and steel-clasp; silver and steel, the coat with white leaf-pattern at the arm and throat: silver and metal, hammered for the ridge of s.h.i.+eld and helmet-rim; white silver with the dark hammered in, belt, staff and magic spear-shaft with the gilt spark at the point and hilt.