The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

But while she spake, still nigher Argo drew
Unto the yellow edges of the shore,
And little help she had of ashen oar,
For as her shielded side rolled through the sea,
Silent with glittering eyes the Minyæ
Gazed o'er the surge, for they were nigh enow
To see the gusty wind of evening blow
Long locks of hair across those bodies white,
With golden spray hiding some dear delight;
Yea, nigh enow to see their red lips smile,
Wherefrom all song had ceased now for a while,
As though they deemed the prey was in the net,
And they no more had need a bait to set,
But their own bodies, fair beyond man's thought,
Under the grey cliff, hidden not of aught
But of such mist of tears as in the eyes
Of those seafaring men might chance to rise.

A moment Jason gazed, then through the waist
Ran swiftly, and with trembling hands made haste
To trim the sail, then to the tiller ran,
And thrust aside the skilled Milesian man,
Who with half-open mouth and dreamy eyes,
Stood steering Argo to that land of lies;
But as he staggered forward, Jason's hand
Hard on the tiller steered away from land,
And as her head a little now fell off
Unto the wide sea, did he shout this scoff
To Thracian Orpheus: “Minstrel, shall we die,
Because thou hast forgotten utterly
What things she taught thee whom men call divine?
Or will thy measures but lead folk to wine
And scented beds, and not to noble deeds?
Or will they fail as fail the shepherd's reeds
Before the trumpet, when these sea-witches

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Pipe shrilly to the washing of the seas?
I am a man, and these but beasts, but thou
Giving these souls, that all were men ere now,
Shall be a very God and not a man!”

So spake he; but his fingers Orpheus ran
Over the strings, and sighing turned away
From that fair ending of the sunny bay;
But as his well-skilled hands were preluding
What his heart swelled with, they began to sing
With pleading voices from the yellow sands,
Clustered together, with appealing hands
Reached out to Argo as the great sail drew,
While o'er their white limbs sharp the spray-shower flew,
Since they spared not to set white feet among
The cold waves heedless of their honied song.

Sweetly they sang, and still the answer came
Piercing and clear from him, as bursts the flame
From out the furnace in the moonless night;
Yet, as their words are no more known aright
Through lapse of many ages, and no man
Can any more across the waters wan
Behold those singing women of the sea,
Once more I pray you all to pardon me,
If with my feeble voice and harsh I sing
From what dim memories yet may chance to cling
About men's hearts, of lovely things once sung
Beside the sea, while yet the world was young.