Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode | Page 4

May;
And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned,

And in his blind eyes burned
Hard light and heat of laughter; and like
flame
That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth
To blear and sear
the sunlight from the south,
His mute mouth opened, and his first
word came:
'Knowest thou me now by name?'
And all his stature
waxed immeasurable,
As of one shadowing heaven and lightening
hell;
And statelier stood he than a tower that stands
And darkens
with its darkness far-off sands
Whereon the sky leans red;
And with
a voice that stilled the winds he said:
'I am he that was thy lord before
thy birth,
I am he that is thy lord till thou turn earth:
I make the
night more dark, and all the morrow
Dark as the night whose
darkness was my breath:
O fool, my name is sorrow;
Thou fool, my
name is death.'
And he that heard spake not, and looked right on
Again, and Love
was gone.
Through many a night toward many a wearier day
His spirit bore his
body down its way.
Through many a day toward many a wearier
night
His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight.
And earth was
bitter, and heaven, and even the sea
Sorrowful even as he.
And the
wind helped not, and the sun was dumb;
And with too long strong
stress of grief to be
His heart grew sere and numb.
And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank
At stardawn standing
on a grey sea-bank
He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave
As
toward a stormier eve;
And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth

Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth,

Intolerable and
inevitable; and all
Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall.


And far out of the quivering east, and far
From past the moonrise and
its guiding star,
Began a noise of tempest and a light
That was not
of the lightning; and a sound
Rang with it round and round
That
was not of the thunder; and a flight
As of blown clouds by night,

That was not of them; and with songs and cries
That sang and
shrieked their soul out at the skies
A shapeless earthly storm of
shapes began
From all ways round to move in on the man,

Clamorous against him silent; and their feet
Were as the wind's are
fleet,
And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet.
And as when all the world of earth was wronged
And all the host of
all men driven afoam
By the red hand of Rome,
Round some fierce
amphitheatre overthronged
With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust

Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood
Is fieriest after
blood
And drunk with trampling of the murderous must
That soaks
and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood
Made monstrous with its
myriad-mustering brood,
Face by fair face panted and gleamed and
pressed,
And breast by passionate breast
Heaved hot with ravenous
rapture, as they quaffed
The red ripe full fume of the deep live
draught,
The sharp quick reek of keen fresh bloodshed, blown

Through the dense deep drift up to the emperor's throne
From the
under steaming sands
With clamour of all-applausive throats and
hands,
Mingling in mirthful time
With shrill blithe mockeries of the
lithe-limbed mime:
So from somewhence far forth of the unbeholden,

Dreadfully driven from over and after and under,
Fierce, blown
through fifes of brazen blast and golden,
With sound of chiming
waves that drown the thunder
Or thunder that strikes dumb the sea's
own chimes,
Began the bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes,

Terrible; firs bowed down as briars or palms

Even at the breathless
blast as of a breeze
Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storms of
psalms;
Red hands rent up the roots of old-world trees,
Thick
flames of torches tossed as tumbling seas
Made mad the moonless
and infuriate air
That, ravening, revelled in the riotous hair
And

raiment of the furred Bassarides.
So came all those in on him; and his heart,
As out of sleep suddenly
struck astart,
Danced, and his flesh took fire of theirs, and grief
Was
as a last year's leaf
Blown dead far down the wind's way; and he set

His pale mouth to the brightest mouth it met
That laughed for love
against his lips, and bade
Follow; and in following all his blood grew
glad
And as again a sea-bird's; for the wind
Took him to bathe him
deep round breast and brow
Not as it takes a dead leaf drained and
thinned,
But as the brightest bay-flower blown on bough,
Set
springing toward it singing: and they rode
By many a vine-leafed,
many a rose-hung road,
Exalt with exultation; many a night
Set all
its stars upon them as for spies
On many a moon-bewildering
mountain-height
Where he rode only by the fierier light
Of his
dread lady's hot sweet hungering eyes.
For the moon wandered
witless of her way,
Spell-stricken by strong magic in such wise
As
wizards use to set the stars astray.
And in his ears the music that
makes mad
Beat always; and what way the music bade,
That alway
rode he; nor was any sleep
His, nor from height nor deep.
But
heaven was as red iron, slumberless,
And had no heart to bless;
And
earth lay sere and darkling as distraught,
And help in her was