Dust to Dust
How dark, how rich and full the summer nights,
What warmth about them brooded, while the sea
Murmured low song, and passion throbbed to peace !
The soft airs curled around them, the great boughs
Swayed slowly with long rhythms of delight,
And sleep was but unconsciousness of joy.
What warmth about them brooded, while the sea
Murmured low song, and passion throbbed to peace !
The soft airs curled around them, the great boughs
Swayed slowly with long rhythms of delight,
And sleep was but unconsciousness of joy.
Like fragile bubbles soaring sky o’er sky
How buoyantly the mornings rose and broke,
As if the world were made afresh each dawn, —
The forest folded in a fleece of mist,
The dim green wood a shimmer of the dew!
The winds were up and singing, far away
The foam-wreaths caught the sun and skimmed to shore
A shoal of sea-nymphs. Then, a rose of dreams
Her velvet cheek, he crushed her in strong arms,
Sprang for his spear and took him to the chase.
How buoyantly the mornings rose and broke,
As if the world were made afresh each dawn, —
The forest folded in a fleece of mist,
The dim green wood a shimmer of the dew!
The winds were up and singing, far away
The foam-wreaths caught the sun and skimmed to shore
A shoal of sea-nymphs. Then, a rose of dreams
Her velvet cheek, he crushed her in strong arms,
Sprang for his spear and took him to the chase.
One eve no hounds made music in the wood,
No hurrying echoes followed on a horn,
No mighty hunter loomed upon the hill.
“ Theseus! Where art thou, Theseus! Love, my love!”
She cried. And all the cliffs of Naxos mocked.
Bitter and salt as the salt bitter sea
Her tears, where prone she lay, all soul and sense
Drowned deep in seas of bottomless despair.
No hurrying echoes followed on a horn,
No mighty hunter loomed upon the hill.
“ Theseus! Where art thou, Theseus! Love, my love!”
She cried. And all the cliffs of Naxos mocked.
Bitter and salt as the salt bitter sea
Her tears, where prone she lay, all soul and sense
Drowned deep in seas of bottomless despair.
Then, sphered in light, at last the great god came, —
The god who gives the sweet o’ the year to earth,
Who guards the world-wide curve of lovely lines,
Ripens the white wheat, pulps the purple grape,
God of the sacramental bread and wine.
The leopard-skin upon his shoulders hung,
The ivy twined his yellow locks, and like
The sunshine splintering on a spear his eye,
And like the sunshine on the heart of a flower
His smile. As beautiful as dawn he stood,
And called with strange compelling melody
This woman cast aside of dust that dies.
And lingeringly, like one in dream, she came
And found his arms a fastness. Lifted then
She lay within the heaven of his heart,
Suffused with all the godship of his love.
The winds less free throughout the courts of space,
Far from the doors of death he went with her,
Filled her with essence of immortal life,
And crowned her with a crown of seven great stars.
Yet in the tenderest moment of his care,
Though fragrant fire ran through her with his touch,
Earth in her trembled to the pulse of earth.
Old thoughts, old memories stirred the soul that bore
The pearl’s dim flaw, the clay in the opal’s grain.
And as black lightnings rive some growing thing
She shuddered back among her clods once more,
Sighing through silent hollows of her heart,
“ Theseus ! Where art thou, Theseus ! Love, my love! ”
The god who gives the sweet o’ the year to earth,
Who guards the world-wide curve of lovely lines,
Ripens the white wheat, pulps the purple grape,
God of the sacramental bread and wine.
The leopard-skin upon his shoulders hung,
The ivy twined his yellow locks, and like
The sunshine splintering on a spear his eye,
And like the sunshine on the heart of a flower
His smile. As beautiful as dawn he stood,
And called with strange compelling melody
This woman cast aside of dust that dies.
And lingeringly, like one in dream, she came
And found his arms a fastness. Lifted then
She lay within the heaven of his heart,
Suffused with all the godship of his love.
The winds less free throughout the courts of space,
Far from the doors of death he went with her,
Filled her with essence of immortal life,
And crowned her with a crown of seven great stars.
Yet in the tenderest moment of his care,
Though fragrant fire ran through her with his touch,
Earth in her trembled to the pulse of earth.
Old thoughts, old memories stirred the soul that bore
The pearl’s dim flaw, the clay in the opal’s grain.
And as black lightnings rive some growing thing
She shuddered back among her clods once more,
Sighing through silent hollows of her heart,
“ Theseus ! Where art thou, Theseus ! Love, my love! ”
Harriet Prescott Spofford.