University of Virginia Library

IV.

“Lyremmos, where
Hidden or wandering art thou? I have sought
Throughout thy haunts and found thee not in any.
Answer, Lyremmos! the calm sea is blue,
And from the porch gleams dismal cold, and dark;
The kind sunbeams shoot no more through the stems
Of the living woods, nor any one of all
The turtles thronging them with sleepy voices
Keeps the still evening wakeful.”—“Mark that star,
Sister, it is a lovely thing, and well
May I have lingered watching its increase.
I have had clouds about me—Thoughts, strange thoughts;
I know not what they were, and call them thoughts:
I never singled out one star before,
But looked upon them all unheedingly.
I have been far away with throbbing pulses,
And terrible joy, and almost utter absorption;—
Art thou assuredly my sister still,
After those ages and those changes all—?
When first I laid me here, and on that roof
Of the great leafage of the tree of life
I fixed my eye, the upper light made shine
Their veinéd green like fire. At first that star
Was scarcely brighter than the heaven around,
And as the near grew darker, it, the distant,
Peered eminently out. My sister! thou
Hast been a guardian to me—from the first
Birth of my memory thou art to me
As that star still increasing in delight
Is to the sky—oh, far more governing!
And now endeavor I to confess to thee,
Since I have known none other counsellor,—
For those fair spirits who were wont to throng
About us were but servants, and within
Our central home, our shrine, I cannot ask.
Am I not now a conscious God, yet mad;
A snake, but without instinct; a mere question,
With ever-bursting heart, and must remain so
Until I re-arrange those tumults, powers—
External to me, yet reciprocal,
To which I am subjected, yet free born.”
—‘Brother! we have been happy 'till this hour,
Happy as all around us; be thou still
A boy!” she cried, and shaded back his hair
To look into his eyes, and held his hand
Up to her neck, and bent her pliant form
Down to him even 'till her breast met his.
“Be still a boy!” she said as they lay still,
Her yellow sandal by his foot, her arm
With its slim bracelet lifting up his hand,
His eye upon the heaven, and hers on his.
And thus replied he. “Would it might be so!
But 'tis a foolish wish, though thou art old
To my mere youth. 'Tis happiness I seek,
But it must be a happiness secure,
Enjoyed because I know it for my own—
That whate'er is should be. Now tell me why,
Maternal Sister, tell me why this garb—”
And lo! he had the insignia of Osiris
Upon his head, upon his loins, and arms!
“There is some strange deformity abroad
From this our home, and I, who midst these sweets
Have swam till now, can reconcile it not;
Nor will! But nature whilst I slept has borne
Me up to manhood, and I wake to search
For what was constant in my heart before.”
“Be still a boy!” she tremulously breathed,
Scarce heard by him, although her brow was pressed
Upon his neck. While thus they lay, the voice
Of some bird sheltered in the dark arose,
Rose clear and loud—then silent was for ever.