Atalanta in Calydon Part 14

MELEAGER.

Though thou art as fire Fed with fuel in vain, My delight, my desire, Is more chaste than the rain, More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars are that live without stain.

ATALANTA.

I would that as water My life's blood had thawn, Or as winter's wan daughter Leaves lowland and lawn Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee made dark in thy dawn.

CHORUS.

When thou dravest the men Of the chosen of Thrace, None turned him again Nor endured he thy face Clothed round with the blush of the battle, with light from a terrible place.

OENEUS.

Thou shouldst die as he dies For whom none sheddeth tears; Filling thine eyes And fulfilling thine ears With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty, the splendour of spears.

CHORUS.

In the ears of the world It is sung, it is told, And the light thereof hurled And the noise thereof rolled From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford of the fleece of gold.

MELEAGER.

Would G.o.d ye could carry me Forth of all these; Heap sand and bury me By the Chersonese Where the thundering Bosphorus answers the thunder of Pontic seas.

OENEUS.

Dost thou mock at our praise And the singing begun And the men of strange days Praising my son In the folds of the hills of home, high places of Calydon?

MELEAGER.

For the dead man no home is; Ah, better to be What the flower of the foam is In fields of the sea, That the sea-waves might be as my raiment, the gulf-stream a garment for me.

CHORUS.

Who shall seek thee and bring And restore thee thy day, When the dove dipt her wing And the oars won their way Where the narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits of Propontis with spray?

MELEAGER.

Will ye crown me my tomb Or exalt me my name, Now my spirits consume, Now my flesh is a flame?

Let the sea slake it once, and men speak of me sleeping to praise me or shame,

CHORUS.

Turn back now, turn thee, As who turns him to wake; Though the life in thee burn thee, Couldst thou bathe it and slake Where the sea-ridge of h.e.l.le hangs heavier, and east upon west waters break?

MELEAGER.

Would the winds blow me back Or the waves hurl me home?

Ah, to touch in the track Where the pine learnt to roam Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-G.o.ds, cool blossoms of water and foam!

CHORUS.

The G.o.ds may release That they made fast; Thy soul shall have ease In thy limbs at the last; But what shall they give thee for life, sweet life that is overpast?

MELEAGER.

Not the life of men's veins, Not of flesh that conceives; But the grace that remains, The fair beauty that cleaves To the life of the rains in the gra.s.ses, the life of the dews on the leaves.

CHORUS.

Thou wert helmsman and chief, Wilt thou turn in an hour, Thy limbs to the leaf, Thy face to the flower, Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the G.o.ds who divide and devour?

MELEAGER.

The years are hungry, They wail all their days; The G.o.ds wax angry And weary of praise; And who shall bridle their lips?

and who shall straiten their ways?

CHORUS.

The G.o.ds guard over us With sword and with rod; Weaving shadow to cover us, Heaping the sod, That law may fulfil herself wholly, to darken man's face before G.o.d.

MELEAGER.

O holy head of Oeneus, lo thy son Guiltless, yet red from alien guilt, yet foul With kinship of contaminated lives, Lo, for their blood I die; and mine own blood For bloodshedding of mine is mixed therewith, That death may not discern me from my kin.

Yet with clean heart I die and faultless hand, Not shamefully; thou therefore of thy love Salute me, and bid fare among the dead Well, as the dead fare; for the best man dead Fares sadly; nathless I now faring well Pa.s.s without fear where nothing is to fear Having thy love about me and thy goodwill, O father, among dark places and men dead.

OENEUS.

Child, I salute thee with sad heart and tears, And bid thee comfort, being a perfect man In fight, and honourable in the house of peace.

The G.o.ds give thee fair wage and dues of death, And me brief days and ways to come at thee.