166
ORPHEUS
Then growing grander as it swept
Past bulrushes and ferns,
Gathering the tears that heaven had wept,
The water glows and burns
In sunlight, where no shadows crept
Around the lazy turns. |
All on a sudden silence came
Athwart some avenue
Where through the trees arrowed the flame
From the exultant blue ;
And all the water-way became
One heart of glittering dew.
The waters narrowed for a space
Between twin rocks confined,
Carven like Gods for poise and grace,
Like miracles for mind:
K’ach fashioned like a kissing face,
The eyes for joy being blind.
The waters widened in a pool,
Broad mirror of blue light.
The surface was as still and cvol
As the broad-breasted night.
Engraven of no mortal tool,
The granite glistened white.
As if to shield from mortal gaze
A nymph’s immortal limbs,
The shadow of the buttress stays
And dips its head and swims,
While moss engirdles it with grays
And greens that dew bedims.
Now, at the last, the western end,
Most miracle of all !
The groves of rock dispart and rend
Their sacred cincture-wall ;
All tunes of heaven their rapture lend
To make the waterfall.
There, steaming from the haze and mist
Where dew is dashed in spray,
Rises a halo sunrise-kissed
And kissed at close of day
From ruby unto amethyst,
Within,the veil of grey.
And there within the circled light
I saw a dancing thing,
Most like the tender-leavéed night
Of moonrise seen in spring,
A shadow luminous and white
Like a ghost beckoning.
And then dim visions came to me,
Faint memories of fear:
As when the Argo put on sea
Such stories we did hear,
Stories to tremble at and flee—
And others worth a tear.
I thought of how a maiden man
Might hear a deadly song
And clasp a siren in his span,
And feel her kiss grow strong
To drag him with caresses wan
Into the [louse of Wrong.!
Another : ? how the women grew
Like vines of tender grape,
And how they laughed as lovers do,
And took a lover’s shape,
And how men sought them, free to woo—
elo leave them, no escape!
Another :* how a golden cup
A golden girl would pour,
And whoso laughed and drank it up
Grew wise and warrior :
But whoso stayed to smile and sup
Returned—ah, never more!
And yet again 4—a river steep,
A maiden combing light,
[ier hair’s enchantment—she would weep
And sing for love’s delight,
Until the listener dropped to sleep
In magic of her night.
1 See Homer’s Odyssey.
2 See Lucian.
3 Ts this a perversion of the story of Calypso?
4 See Goethe's ‘‘ Lorelei."