In Divers Tones | Page 3

bowshot past
My platan, thro' the woven leaves low-hung,

Trembling in meshes of the woven sun,
A yellow-sanded pool,

shallow and clear,
Lay sparkling, brown about the further bank

From scarlet-berried ash-trees hanging over.
But suddenly the
shallows brake awake
With laughter and light voices, and I saw

Where Artemis, white goddess incorrupt,
Bane of swift beasts, and
deadly for straight shaft
Unswerving, from a coppice not far off

Came to the pool from the hither bank to bathe.
Amid her maiden
company she moved,
Their cross-thonged yellow buskins scattered
off,
Unloosed their knotted hair; and thus the pool
Received them
stepping, shrinking, down to it.
Here they flocked white, and splashed the water-drops
On rounded
breast and shoulder snowier
Than the washed clouds athwart the
morning's blue,--
Fresher than river grasses which the herds
Pluck
from the river in the burning noons.
Their tresses on the summer
wind they flung;
And some a shining yellow fleece let fall
For the
sun's envy; others with white hands
Lifted a glooming wealth of locks
more dark
Than deepest wells, but purple in the sun.
And She, their
mistress, of the heart unstormed,
Stood taller than they all, supreme,
and still,
Perfectly fair like day, and crowned with hair
The color of
nipt beech-leaves: Ay, such hair
Was mine in years when I was such
as these.
I let it fall to cover me, or coiled
Its soft thick coils about
my throat and arms;
Its color like nipt beech-leaves, tawny brown,

But in the sun a fountain of live gold.
Even as thus they played, and some lithe maids
Upreached white
arms to grasp the berried ash,
And, plucking the bright bunches, shed
them wide
By red ripe handfuls, not far off I saw
With long stride
making down the beechy glade,
Clear-eyed, with firm lips laughing,
at his heels
The clamor of his fifty deep-tongued hounds,
Actaeon. I
beheld him not far off,
But unto bath and bathers hid from view,

Being beyond that mighty rock whereon
His wont was to be stretched
at dip of eve,
When frogs are loud amid the tall-plumed sedge
In
marshy spots about Asopus' bank,--
Deeming his life was very sweet,

his day
A pleasant one, the peopled breadths of earth
Most fair, and
fair the shining tracts of sea;
Green solitudes, and broad low-lying
plains
Made brown with frequent labors of men's hands,
And salt,
blue, fruitless waters. But this mount,
Cithaeron, bosomed deep in
soundless hills,
Its fountained vales, its nights of starry calm,
Its
high chill dawns, its long-drawn golden days,--
Was dearest to him.
Here he dreamed high dreams,
And felt within his sinews strength to
strive
Where strife was sorest and to overcome,
And in his heart the
thought to do great deeds,
With power in all ways to accomplish them.

For had not he done well to men, and done
Well to the gods?
Therefore he stood secure.
But him,--for him--Ah that these eyes should see!--
Approached a
sudden stumbling in his ways!
Not yet, not yet he knew a god's fierce
wrath,
Nor wist of that swift vengeance lying in wait.
And now he came upon a slope of sward
Against the pool. With
startled cry the maids
Shrank clamoring round their mistress, or made
flight
To covert in the hazel thickets. She
Stirred not; but pitiless
anger paled her eyes,
Intent with deadly purpose. He, amazed,

Stood with his head thrust forward, while his curls
Sun-lit lay
glorious on his mighty neck,--
Let fall his bow and clanging spear,
and gazed
Dilate with ecstasy; nor marked the dogs
Hush their deep
tongues, draw close, and ring him round,
And fix upon him strange,
red, hungry eyes,
And crouch to spring. This for a moment. Then
It
seemed his strong knees faltered, and he sank.
Then I cried out,--for
straight a shuddering stag
Sprang one wild leap over the dogs; but
they
Fastened upon his flanks with a long yell,
And reached his
throat; and that proud head went down
Beneath their wet, red fangs
and reeking jaws.
I have lived long, and watched out many days,
Yet have not seen that
ought is sweet save life,
Nor learned that life hath other end than
death.
Thick horror like a cloud had veiled my sight,
That for a

space I saw not, and my ears
Were shut from hearing; but when sense
grew clear
Once more, I only saw the vacant pool
Unrippled,--only
saw the dreadful sward.
Where dogs lay gorged, or moved in fretful
search,
Questing uneasily; and some far up
The slope, and some at
the low water's edge,
With snouts set high in air and straining throats

Uttered keen howls that smote the echoing hills.
They missed their
master's form, nor understood
Where was the voice they loved, the
hand that reared;--
And some lay watching by the spear and bow

Flung down.
And now upon the homeless pack
And paling stream arose a
noiseless wind
Out of the yellow west awhile, and stirred
The
branches down the valley; then blew off
To eastward toward the long
gray straits, and died
Into the dark, beyond the utmost verge.
IN THE AFTERNOON.
Wind of the summer afternoon,
Hush, for my heart is out of tune!
Hush, for thou movest restlessly
The too light sleeper, Memory!
Whate'er thou hast to tell me, yet
'Twere something sweeter to
forget,--
Sweeter than all thy breath of balm
An