FullReads

Here the dead people moved or sat,
Casting no shadow, hailing none
Boldly; but in fierce undertone
They plied each other, or on-sped
Their way with signal of the head
For answer, or arms desperate
Flung up, or shrug disconsolate.
And this the quest of every one:
“What hope have ye?” And answer, “None.”
Never passed shadow shadow but
That answer got to question put.
In that they lived, in that, alas!
Lovely and hapless, Thou must pass
Thy days, with this for added lot–
Aching, to nurse things unforgot.

Remember’d joy, Hypsipyle!
The Oread choir, the Oread glee:
The nimble air of quickening hills,
The sweet dawn light that floods and fills
The hollowed valleys; the dawn wind
That bids the world wake, and on blind
Eyelids of sleeping mortals lays
Cool palms that urge them see and praise
The Day-God coming with the sun
To hearten toil! He warned you run
And hide your beauties deep in brake
Of fern or briar, or reed of lake,
Or in wet crevice of the rock,
There to abide until the clock
You reckon by, with shadowy hands,
Lay benediction on the lands
And landsmen, and the eve-jar’s croak
Summon ye, lightfoot fairy folk,
To your activity full tide
Over the empty earth and wide.
Here be your food, fair nymph, and coy
Of mortal ken–remember’d joy!

Remember’d joy! Ah, stormy nights,
Ah, the mad revel when wind fights
With wind, and slantwise comes the rain
And shatters at the window-pane,
To wake the hind, who little knows
Whose fingers drum those passionate blows,
Nor what swift indwellers of air
Ye be who hide in forms so fair
Your wayward motions, cruel to us,
While lovely, and dispiteous!
Ah, nights of flying scud and rout
When scared the slim young moon rides out
In her lagoon of open sky,
Or older, marks your revelry
As calm and large she oars above
Your drifting lives of ruth or love.
Boon were those nights of dusted gold
And glint of fireflies! Boon the cold
And witching frost! All’s one, all’s one
To thee, whose nights and days go on
Now in one span of changeless dusk
On one earth, crackling like the husk
Of the dropt mast in winter wood:
Remember’d joy–’tis all thy food,
Hypsipyle, to whose fond sprite
I vow my praise while I have light.

Dumbly she wandered there, as pale
With lack of light, with form as frail
As those poor hollow congeners
Whose searching eyes encountered hers,
Petitioning as mute as she
Some grain of hope, where none might be,
Daring not yet to voice their moan
To her whose case was not their own;
For where they go like breath in a shell
That wails, my love goes quick in Hell.

Alas, for her, the sweet and slim!
Slowly she pines; her eyes grow dim
With seeking; her smooth, sudden breasts
Hang languidly; those little nests
For kisses which her dimples were,
In cheeks graved hollow now by care
Vanish, and sharply thrusts her chin,
And sharp her bones of arm and shin.
Reproach she looks, about, above,
Denied her light, denied her love,
Denied for what she sacrificed,
Doomed to be fruitless agonist.
(O God, and I must see her fade,
Must see and anguish–in my shade!)
Nor help nor comfort gat she now
From her whose need called forth her vow;
For close in arms Queen Kore dwelt
In that great tower Aidoneus built
To cherish her; deep in his bed,
Loved as the Gods love whom they wed;
Turned from pale maiden to pale wife,
Pale now with love’s insatiate strife
First to appease, and then renew
The wild desire to mingle two
Natures, to long, to seek, to shun,
To have, to give, to make two one
That must be two if they would each
Learn all the lore that love can teach.
So strove the mistress, while the maid
Went alien among the dead,
Unspoken, speaking none, but watcht
By them who knew themselves outmatcht
By her, translated whole, nor guessed
What miseries gnawed within that breast,
Which could be toucht, which could give meat
To babe; which was not eye-deceit
As theirs, poor phantoms. So went she
Grudged but unscathed beside the sea,
Or sat alone by that sad strand
Nursing her worn cheek in her hand;
And did not mark, as day on day
Lengthened the arch of changeless gray,
How she was shadowed, how to her
Stretcht arms another prisoner;
Nor knew herself desirable
By any thankless guest of Hell–
Withal each phantom seemed no less
Whole-natured to her heedlessness.