Hephaestus, Persephone at Enna, and Sappho in Leucadia/Persephone
PERSEPHONE
PERSEPHONE
Goddess and Mother, let me smooth thy brow
And cling about thee for a little time
With these pale hands,—for see, still at the glow
Of all this white-houred noon and alien sun
I tremble like a new-born nightingale
Blown from its nest into bewildering rain.
How shall I tell thee, Mother, of those days
My aching eyes saw not this azure sea
Of air, unknown in Death’s gray Underworld
And only whispered of by restless Shades
Rememb’ring shadowy things across their dusk?—
Or how I often asked: “Canst thou, dark heart,
Remember home? So far and long forlorn
Canst thou, my heart, remember Sicily?”
Then didst thou, weeping, call Persephone
The Many-Songed, and where thy lonely voice
Once fell all greenness faded and the song
Of birds all died, and down from brazen heights
A blood-red sun long noon by sullen noon
On ashen days and desolation shone;
And cattle lowed about the withered springs,
And Earth gaped wide, each arid Evening moaned
Amid the dusk for rain, or dew at most.
But thou in anger didst withhold the green,
And grim of breast forbade the bursting sap,
And dared the darkest sky-line of lone Deeps
For thy lost daughter, and could find her not.
Then came the Arethusan whisper, and release;
The refreshing rains washed down and gushed
And sluiced the juicy grasses once again,
And bird by bird, the Summer was re-born,
And drooping in thine arms I wakened here.
Yet all those twilight days I was content
Though silent as a frozen river crept
The hours entombed, though far I was from thee
And from the Nysian fields of open sun,
The sound of waters, and the throats of song.
But when with happier lips I tell thee all
Thou must, worn Mother, leave me here alone
Where soft as early snow the white hours fall
About my musing eyes, and life seems strange,
And strange the muffled piping of the birds,
And strange the drowsy music of the streams,
The whispering pavilions of the pines;
And more than strange the immersing wash of air
That breathes and sways and breaks through all my being
And lulls away, like seas intangible,
Regrets, and tears, and days of heavy gloom.
O Mother, all these things are told not of
Where I have been, and on these eyes estranged
Earth’s vernal sweetness falls so mystical
Its beauty turns a thing of bitter tears;
And even in my gladness I must grieve
For this dark change, where Death has died to me,—
For my lost Gloom, where life was life to me!
Long years from now shall ages yet unborn
Watch the returning Spring and strangely yearn;
Others shall thrill with joy like unto mine;
Vague things shall move them and strange voices steal
Through sad, bud-scented April eves to them.
Round them shall fall a glory not of earth,
As now o’er these Sicilian meadows fall
Dim memories that come I know not whence.
In lands I know not of some sorrowing girl
Shall faintly breathe: “I am Persephone
On such a day!” and through the world shall run
The immemorial rapture and the pangs,
And pale-eyed ghosts shall creep out to the light
And drink the sun, like wine, and live once more.
The dower of my delight shall make them glad;
The tears of my regret shall weigh them down,
And men with wondering eyes shall watch the Spring
Return, and weep, indeed, these selfsame tears,
And laugh with my good laughter, knowing not
Whence came their passing bliss so torn with pain.
For good is Enna, and the wide, glad Earth,
And good the comfortable green of grass
And Nysian meadows still so milky pale;
Good seems the dark steer in the noonday sun,
The ploughman’s keel that turns black waves of loam,
The laughing girls, the fluting shepherd boys,
And beautiful the song of many birds;
Good seem these golden bees whose busy wings
With wavering music drone and die away,—
The orchard odours and the seas of bloom;
And good the valleys where the green leaves breathe,
The hills where all the patient pines look down;
Good seem the lowland poplars bathed in light,
That pillar from the plain this tent of blue,—
The quiet homes amid the cooling fields,
The flashing rivers and the woods remote,
The little high white town among the hills!
All, all are good to look on, and most dear
To my remembering eyes. Each crocus, too,
And gold narcissus, gleams memorial,—
Untouched of sorrow for that troubled day
Impetuous hoof and wheel threshed through the wheat,
And ’mid these opiate blooms the Four-Horsed One
Swept down on me, half lost in pensive dreams,
And like a poppy in some panting noon,
All drooping, bore me to the gates of Hell,—
When on my fragile girlhood closed his arms
As on some seed forlorn Earth’s darkest loam.
Yet think not, Mother, this fierce Son of Night
Brought only sorrow with him, for behold,
In learning to forbear I learned to love;
And battling pale on his impassioned breast
I felt run through my veins some golden pang
Of dear defeat, some subjugation dim,
Presaging all this bosom once was made
To be thus crushed, ere once it could be glad.
Thus are we fashioned, Mother, though we live
Immortal or the sons of men; and so
Each day on my disdain some tendril new
Bound me the closer to him; loving not,
Some wayward bar of pity caged me down,
And day by languid day amid Death’s gloom,
I grew to lean upon him, and in time
I watched his coming and his absence wept.
I walked companion to his pallid shades,
And pale as yon thin crescent noonday moon
I dwelt with him, a ghost amid his ghosts.
If this was love, I loved him more than life.
And now he means to me what flame and ruin
And tumultuous conflagration of great towers
And citadels must mean to martial eyes,
Bewildering the blood like dizzy wine
And sweeping on to any maddened end:
I came to glory in him,—felt small hands
Clutch at my breast when he was standing near,
And knew his cruel might, yet thrilled to it
And in his strength even took my weak delight.
Stern were his days, yet leaned he patient o’er
This wayward heart, till I in wonder saw
From those dark weeds of wanton lust creep forth
Belated violets of calmer love,—
And, link by link, found all my life enchained!
Only at times the music of the Sea
Sang in my ears its old insistent note;
Only at times I heard the wash and rush
Of waves on open shores and windy cliffs;
Only at times I seemed to see great wings
Scaling some crystal stairway to the Sun,
And languid eagles shouldering languid clouds.
Singing on summer mornings too I heard,—
I caught the sound that sweet green waters make,
The music—O so delicate!—of leaves
And rustling grasses, and the stir of wings
About dim gardens. Where shy nightingales
Shook their old sorrow over Ida’s gloom
I into immortality was touched
Once more by song and moonlight, far away.
I mused beside dim fires with Memory
And through my tears rebuilt some better life
Untouched of time and change, and dreaming thus
Forgot my woe, and, first of all the gods,
I, wistful-eyed, with Aspiration walked!
For, Mother, see, this dubious death in life
Makes beautiful my immortality:
Once all my world was only phantom stream
And shadowy flower, and song that was not song,
And wrapt in white eternities I walked
A daughter of the gods, who knew not Death:
I was a thing of coldness and disdain,
Half-losing all that was so dear in life:
Enthroned in astral taciturnity,
I, looking tranquil-eyed on beauties old,
E’er faced some dull Forever, strange to Hope
And strange to Sorrow, strange to Tears,—Regrets;
Joy was not joy, and living was not life.
So unreluctantly the long years went,
Though I had all that we, the gods, have asked,
Drunk with life’s wine, I could not sing the grape,
And knew not once, till Hades touched my hand
And made me wise, how good the world could be.
Now, now I know the solace and the thrill
Of passing Autumns and awakening Springs;
I know and love the Darkness, many-voiced,
Since Night it was that taught me to be strong;
The meaning of all music now I know,—
The song autumnal sky and twilit seas
Would sing so well, if once they found the words,—
The sorrow of dear shores grown low and dim
To darkling eyes, that may not look again,—
The beauty of the rose made rich by death,—
The throbbing lark that hymns amid the yew,
And mortal love grown glorious by the grave.
For worlds and faces now I see beyond
The sad-aisled avenues of evening stars;
The Future, like an opal dawn, unfurls
To me, and all the dreaming Long Ago
Lies wide and luring as the open Deep.
And so, still half in gloom and half in sun
Shall men and women dwell as I have dwelt.
Half happy and half sad their days shall fall,
And grief shall only learn beside the grave
How beauteous life can be, how deep is love.
As snow makes soft Earth’s vernal green, so tears
Shall make its laughter sweet, and lovers strange
To thee and me, gray Mother, many years
From now shall feel this thing and dimly know
The bitter-sweetness of this hour to me,
Whom Life has given unto Death and Death
Back unto Life—both ghost and goddess, lo,
Who faced these mortal tears to fathom love!