Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode | Page 5

but he?Sat panther-throned beside Erigone,?Riding the red ways of the revel through?Midmost of pale-mouthed passion's crownless crew.?Till on some winter's dawn of some dim year?He let the vine-bit on the panther's lip?Slide, and the green rein slip,?And set his eyes to seaward, nor gave ear?If sound from landward hailed him, dire or dear;?And passing forth of all those fair fierce ranks?Back to the grey sea-banks,?Against a sea-rock lying, aslant the steep,?Fell after many sleepless dreams on sleep.
And in his sleep the dun green light was shed?Heavily round his head?That through the veil of sea falls fathom-deep,?Blurred like a lamp's that when the night drops dead?Dies; and his eyes gat grace of sleep to see?The deep divine dark dayshine of the sea,?Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways,?Broad-based, or branching as a sea-flower sprays?That side or this dividing; and anew?The glory of all her glories that he knew.?And in sharp rapture of recovering tears?He woke on fire with yearnings of old years,?Pure as one purged of pain that passion bore,?Ill child of bitter mother; for his own?Looked laughing toward him from her midsea throne,?Up toward him there ashore.
Thence in his heart the great same joy began,?Of child that made him man:?And turned again from all hearts else on quest,?He communed with his own heart, and had rest.?And like sea-winds upon loud waters ran?His days and dreams together, till the joy?Burned in him of the boy.?Till the earth's great comfort and the sweet sea's breath?Breathed and blew life in where was heartless death,?Death spirit-stricken of soul-sick days, where strife?Of thought and flesh made mock of death and life.?And grace returned upon him of his birth?Where heaven was mixed with heavenlike sea and earth;?And song shot forth strong wings that took the sun?From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth?And father's fire made mortal in his son.?Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze?To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's;?For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great?With child of ravishing winds, that violate?Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire?And eyes outburning heaven's?With fires more violent than the lightning levin's?And breath drained out and desperate of desire,?Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong,?Grew great with child of song.?Nor less than when his veins first leapt for joy?To draw delight in such as burns a boy,?Now too the soul of all his senses felt?The passionate pride of deep sea-pulses dealt?Through nerve and jubilant vein?As from the love and largess of old time,?And with his heart again?The tidal throb of all the tides keep rhyme?And charm him from his own soul's separate sense?With infinite and invasive influence?That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong,?Being now no more a singer, but a song.
Till one clear day when brighter sea-wind blew?And louder sea-shine lightened, for the waves?Were full of godhead and the light that saves,?His father's, and their spirit had pierced him through,?He felt strange breath and light all round him shed?That bowed him down with rapture; and he knew?His father's hand, hallowing his humbled head,?And the old great voice of the old good time, that said:
"Child of my sunlight and the sea, from birth?A fosterling and fugitive on earth;?Sleepless of soul as wind or wave or fire,?A manchild with an ungrown God's desire;?Because thou hast loved nought mortal more than me,?Thy father, and thy mother-hearted sea;?Because thou hast set thine heart to sing, and sold?Life and life's love for song, God's living gold;?Because thou hast given thy flower and fire of youth?To feed men's hearts with visions, truer than truth;?Because thou hast kept in those world-wandering eyes?The light that makes me music of the skies;?Because thou hast heard with world-unwearied ears?The music that puts light into the spheres;?Have therefore in thine heart and in thy mouth?The sound of song that mingles north and south,?The song of all the winds that sing of me,?And in thy soul the sense of all the sea."
ON THE CLIFFS
[Greek: imeroph?nos aêd?n.]
SAPPHO.
Between the moondawn and the sundown here?The twilight hangs half starless; half the sea?Still quivers as for love or pain or fear?Or pleasure mightier than these all may be?A man's live heart might beat?Wherein a God's with mortal blood should meet?And fill its pulse too full to bear the strain?With fear or love or pleasure's twin-born, pain.?Fiercely the gaunt woods to the grim soil cling?That bears for all fair fruits?Wan wild sparse flowers of windy and wintry spring?Between the tortive serpent-shapen roots?Wherethrough their dim growth hardly strikes and shoots?And shews one gracious thing?Hardly, to speak for summer one sweet word?Of summer's self scarce heard.?But higher the steep green sterile fields, thick-set?With flowerless hawthorn even to the upward verge?Whence the woods gathering watch new cliffs emerge?Higher than their highest of crowns that sea-winds fret,?Hold fast, for all that night or wind can say,?Some