I

Men, fires, feasts, steps of temple, fore-stone, lintel, step of white altar, fire and after-fire, slaughter before, fragment of burnt meat, deep mystery, grapple of mind to reach the tense thought, power and wealth, purpose and prayer alike, (men, fires, feasts, temple steps) useless.

Useless to me who plant wide feet on a mighty plinth, useless to me who sit, wide of shoulder, great of thigh, heavy in gold, to press gold back against solid back of the marble seat: useless the dragons wrought on the arms, useless the poppy-buds and the gold inset of the spray of wheat.

Ah they have wrought me heavy and great of limb she is slender of waist, slight of breast, made of many fashions; they have set her small feet on many a plinth; she they have known, she they have spoken with, she they have smiled upon, she they have caught and flattered with praise and gifts.

But useless the flattery of the mighty power they have granted me: for I will not stay in her breast the great of limb, though perfect the shell they have fashioned me, these men!

Do I sit in the market place do I smile, does a noble brow bend like the brow of Zeus am I a spouse, his or any, am I a woman, or goddess or queen, to be met by a god with a smile and left?

II

Do you ask for a scroll, parchment, oracle, prophecy, precedent; do you ask for tablets marked with thought or words cut deep on the marble surface, do you seek measured utterance or the mystic trance?

Sleep on the stones of Delphi dare the ledges of Pallas but keep me foremost, keep me before you, after you, with you, never forget when you start for the Delphic precipice, never forget when you seek Pallas and meet in thought yourself drawn out from yourself like the holy serpent, never forget in thought or mysterious trance I am greatest and least.

Soft are the hands of Love, soft, soft are his feet; you who have twined myrtle, have you brought crocuses, white as the inner stript bark of the osier, have you set black crocus against the black locks of another?

III

Of whom do I speak?

Many the children of gods but first I take Bromios, fostering prince, lift from the ivy brake, a king.

Enough of the lightning, enough of the tales that speak of the death of the mother: strange tales of a shelter brought to the unborn, enough of tale, myth, mystery, precedent a child lay on the earth asleep.

Soft are the hands of Love, but what soft hands clutched at the thorny ground, scratched like a small white ferret or foraging whippet or hound, sought nourishment and found only the crackling of ivy, dead ivy leaf and the white berry, food for a bird, no food for this who sought, bending small head in a fever, whining with little breath.

Ah, small black head, ah, the purple ivy bush, ah, berries that shook and spilt on the form beneath, who begot you and left?

Though I begot no man child all my days, the child of my heart and spirit, is the child the gods desert alike and the mother in death the unclaimed Dionysios.

IV

What of her
mistress of Death?

Form of a golden wreath were my hands that girt her head, fingers that strove to meet, and met where the whisps escaped from the fillet, of tenderest gold, small circlet and slim were my fingers then.

Now they are wrought of iron to wrest from earth secrets; strong to protect, strong to keep back the winter when winter tracks too soon blanch the forest: strong to break dead things, the young tree, drained of sap, the old tree, ready to drop, to lift from the rotting bed of leaves, the old crumbling pine tree stock, to heap bole and knot of fir and pine and resinous oak, till fire shatter the dark and hope of spring rise in the hearts of men.

What of her
mistress of Death
what of his kiss?

Ah, strong were his arms to wrest slight limbs from the beautiful earth, young hands that plucked the first buds of the chill narcissus, soft fingers that broke and fastened the thorny stalk with the flower of wild acanthus.

Ah, strong were the arms that took
(ah evil, the heart and graceless,)
but the kiss was less passionate!