 | As it Was in The Beginning |  |
CANTO II.
I
From out the surge of Sutro's steep,Beyond the Gate a rock uprears
So sudden, savage, unawares
The very billows start and leap,
As frightened at its lifted face,
So shoreless, sealess, out of place;
A sea-washed, surge-locked isle, as lone
As proud Napoleon on his throne,
His Saint Helena throne, where still
The dazed world in dumb wonder turns
To his high-throned, imperious will
And incense burns and ever burns.
Here huge sea-lions climb and cling,
Despite of surge and seethe and shock,
The topmost limit of the rock,
And one is named Napoleon, king.
Behold him lord the land, the sea,
In stern, unquestioned majesty!
II
She saw, she raised her drooping headWith eager face and cheering said:
“What lusty, upheaved, bull-built neck!
What lungs to lift above the roar!
What captain on his quarter deck
To mock the sea and scorn the shore!
10
I like his ardent, lover's zest!”
III
The huge sea-beast uprose, uprose,As if he now must topple down.
He reached his black and bearded nose
Above his harem, gray, black, brown,
Sleek, shining, wet, or steaming dry,
And mouthed and mouthed against the sky.
IV
What eloquence, what hot love pain!What land but this, what love but his?
What isle of bliss but this and this—
To roar and love and roar again?
What land, what love but this his own,
Loud roaring from his slippery throne!
V
At last her heart was moved and sheRaised her great eyes to his black beard,
Then sudden turned as if she feared
And threw her headlong in the sea,
Another Sappho, all for love,
While Phaon towered still above.
An instant only; yet once more
That upheaved head, that great bull neck,
That sea-born, bossed, bull-throated roar—
A poise, a plunge, a flash, a fleck,
And far down, caverned in the deep,
Where sea-green curtains swing and sweep
And vari-colored carpets creep,
Soft emerald or amethyst
Two lion lovers kept sweet tryst.
VI
She looked, looked long, then smiled, then sighedA proud, pure soul unsatisfied.
11
And up the poppy spangled steep,
O'er grass set cushions sown in gold,
As she would sleep yet would not sleep.
She reached her wide hands fast about
And grasses, gold and manifold,
Of lowly blossoms, pink and blue,
She gathered in and laughing threw,
With bare-armed, heedless, happy grace—
Threw fragrant handfuls in his face
And then as if to sleep she lay,
A babe nursed at the breast of May—
Lay back with blue eyes to the skies
And clouds of wondrous butterflies:
Such Mariposa blooms in air,
Such bloomy, golden poppy hair!
And which were hers or poppy's gold
Without your touch none could have told;
And which were butterflies or bloom,
To guess, there was not guessing room,
The while, in quest of sweets or rest
They fanned her face, they kissed her breast.
VII
That face like to a lifted song,A face of sea-shell tint, with tide
Of springtime flowing fast and strong
And fearless in its maiden pride—
A red rose ambushed in such hair
Of heedless, wind-kissed, poppy gold,
Blown here, blown there, blown anywhere,
Soft-lifting, falling fold on fold,
As made gold poppies where she sat
Turn envious, turn green thereat:
A wise face yet a wilful face,
A face that would not be denied
No more than gipsy winds that race
The sea bank in their saucy pride,
A face that knew, and only knew,
The natural, the human, true.
12
VIII
Those two round mounds of Nineveh,What treasures of the past they knew!
But these two round mounds here today
Hold treasures richer far than they,
And prophesies more truly true.
Old Nineveh's twin mounds are dust;
They only know the ghostly past;
But these two new mounds hold in trust
The awful future, hold the vast
And unborn empires, land or sea,
Henceforth, for all eternity.
Let pass dead pasts; far wiser turn
And delve the future; love and learn.
IX
It seems she dreamed. She slept, we know,A happy, quiet little space,
Then thrust a right limb far below
And half way turned aside her face,
And then she threw her arms wide out
In sleep and so reached blind about,
As if for something she might find
From fortune-telling, gipsy wind.
X
The soft, warm winds from far awayWere weary and they crept so near,
They lay against her willing ear
As if they had so much to say,
And she, she seemed so glad to hear
The while she loving, sleeping lay
And dreamed of love nor dreamed of doubt,
But laughing, thrust her form far out
And down the fragrant poppy steep
In playful, restless, happy sleep.
She sighed, she heaved her hilly breast,
As one who would but could not rest.
13
XI
How natural, how free, how fairThe while the happy winds on wing,
As larger butterflies, laid bare
A rippled, braided rim of white
And outstretched ankles exquisite—
What ankles, legs, what everything
That makes great woman great and good—
That makes for noblest motherhood!
XII
Such legs as mount the steeps of morn,Such legs as love, not lust, may share,
Such legs as God has shaped to bear
The weight of ages, worlds unborn;
Such legs as Lesbian shrines revealed
When comely, longing mothers kneeled;
Such legs as Milo dared to hew
And all the clean world longed to view;
Such legs as Millais loved to draw
When painting tall, Greek girls at play;
Such legs as blind old Homer saw,
As Marlowe knew but yesterday
When Helen climbed once more for him
Her cloud-topt towers of Illium.
| As it Was in The Beginning | |