Sea Garden Part 3

The sea called-- you faced the estuary, you were drowned as the tide pa.s.sed.-- I am glad of this-- at least you have escaped.

The heavy sea-mist stifles me.

I choke with each breath-- a curious peril, this-- the G.o.ds have invented curious torture for us.

One of us, pierced in the flank, dragged himself across the marsh, he tore at the bay-roots, lost hold on the crumbling bank--

Another crawled--too late-- for shelter under the cliffs.

I am glad the tide swept you out, O beloved, you of all this ghastly host alone untouched, your white flesh covered with salt as with myrrh and burnt iris.

We were hemmed in this place, so few of us, so few of us to fight their sure lances, the straight thrust--effortless with slight life of muscle and shoulder.

So straight--only we were left, the four of us--somehow shut off.

And the marsh dragged one back, and another perished under the cliff, and the tide swept you out.

Your feet cut steel on the paths, I followed for the strength of life and grasp.

I have seen beautiful feet but never beauty welded with strength.

I marvelled at your height.

You stood almost level with the lance-bearers and so slight.

And I wondered as you clasped your shoulder-strap at the strength of your wrist and the turn of your young fingers, and the lift of your shorn locks, and the bronze of your sun-burnt neck.

All of this, and the curious knee-cap, fitted above the wrought greaves, and the sharp muscles of your back which the tunic could not cover-- the outline no garment could deface.

I wonder if you knew how I watched, how I crowded before the spearsmen-- but the G.o.ds wanted you, the G.o.ds wanted you back.

HUNTRESS

Come, blunt your spear with us, our pace is hot and our bare heels in the heel-prints-- we stand tense--do you see-- are you already beaten by the chase?

We lead the pace for the wind on the hills, the low hill is spattered with loose earth-- our feet cut into the crust as with spears.

We climbed the ploughed land, dragged the seed from the clefts, broke the clods with our heels, whirled with a parched cry into the woods:

_Can you come, can you come, can you follow the hound trail, can you trample the hot froth?_

Spring up--sway forward-- follow the quickest one, aye, though you leave the trail and drop exhausted at our feet.

GARDEN

I

You are clear O rose, cut in rock, hard as the descent of hail.

I could sc.r.a.pe the colour from the petals like spilt dye from a rock.

If I could break you I could break a tree.

If I could stir I could break a tree-- I could break you.

II

O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop through this thick air-- fruit cannot fall into heat that presses up and blunts the points of pears and rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat-- plough through it, turning it on either side of your path.

SEA VIOLET

The white violet is scented on its stalk, the sea-violet fragile as agate, lies fronting all the wind among the torn sh.e.l.ls on the sand-bank.

The greater blue violets flutter on the hill, but who would change for these who would change for these one root of the white sort?

Violet your grasp is frail on the edge of the sand-hill, but you catch the light-- frost, a star edges with its fire.

THE CLIFF TEMPLE

I

Great, bright portal, shelf of rock, rocks fitted in long ledges, rocks fitted to dark, to silver granite, to lighter rock-- clean cut, white against white.

High--high--and no hill-goat tramples--no mountain-sheep has set foot on your fine gra.s.s; you lift, you are the world-edge, pillar for the sky-arch.

The world heaved-- we are next to the sky: over us, sea-hawks shout, gulls sweep past-- the terrible breakers are silent from this place.

Below us, on the rock-edge, where earth is caught in the fissures of the jagged cliff, a small tree stiffens in the gale, it bends--but its white flowers are fragrant at this height.

And under and under, the wind booms: it whistles, it thunders, it growls--it presses the gra.s.s beneath its great feet.