Part 3

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) 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, 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?

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 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.

_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.”

“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 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, 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.

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 the oars for the dead peace of heart and brain worn out, you must wait, alert, alert, alert.

_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 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: (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: 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 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, 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?

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, 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._

_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 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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.

_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 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 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 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.