Collected Poems Read Free Page B

whose name was crowned thro’ all the isles
                                            With praise and reverence,
        Grew stranger to the life that had been mine;
                   Transmuted from the very certitude
        Of right example to reproach; become
    As vacillant, weak flame before the wind of lust.
    Yet, not, O Father, stained with deed of wantonness.
                   I could not quite escape that holiness
                                            The sacred years had bred!
    Methinks, the shepherd boy will never know
        But that one fragrant with a nobleness
    He dimly felt, had found him for a space
                   In some strange wise companionable.
        And at the last he loved me, Zeus! Oh, not
    As lovers love — less than the shepherds’ strife
        Of skill, less than the glowing dance,
    Or merry gossip when the wine-vat teems.
                             This irony for only anodyne
                             Of all my pain Thou tenderest me —
                   Out of the evil of my passioning came good!
                   For Phaon, Phaon loved me as a goddess sent,
    And, curbing grossness, looked to me for praise …
                   Perhaps his blood was clean of lust,
        The mountains and the winds being pure,
        Or else his years, maturing loveliness,
                                            Left green that mortal taint.
                             O soft, soft lies, beguile me not!
                                            Altho’ by me unroused,
    No doubt his manhood’s proof will flaunt before
    The red and white of some broad-bosomed wench
                             Of his own kind — when I am gone!
                   Oh, swiftly, swiftly, scorning shame,
    Tell all, my heart, and make perpetual end …
        Thou send’st to mortals night as comforter;
    And when the rounded moon breathes up the east,
    Dost think to ease our most immedicable griefs
                             With loveliness. But I am still
                             Weary and broken with the memory
                   Of such a night, vouchsafèd lately.
                   Lesbos, my own, lay drowned beneath
    The warm and argent flood of light — so still,
                   The very olive trees unstirring slept
                   A silver sleep. But, ah, to me the night
                   Was terrible with perfumes from the hair
                   And breasts of Aphrodite; within my blood,
        Unstaunchable, surged all the undertow of spring,
        Dragging my soul unto the sea that knows no law.
        Haggard and parched, love’s frenzy caught me up
        And bore me from my dream-hot bed into the night.
        My feet unconscious chose those pastures known
        To love. The way was haunted with him; here
    He stood; here leaned upon his crook to watch the dawn;
                             Here lifted up the wonder of his eyes.
                   And on the visioning leapt all the pity of
                             My life — vexing and hounding me.
        About me, moonlight, stillness, empty night;
                                            Distraught, I stumbled on.
                             A light, near footstep sounded suddenly;
                   I lifted filmy eyes; saw; reeled; and saw
    Again — Phaon, the shepherd. Then madness