University of Virginia Library

“This is my joy—that when my soul had wrought
Her single victory over fate and fear,
He came, who was deliverance. At the first,
Though the rough-bearded fellows bruised my wrists
Holding them backwards while they drove the bolts,
And stared around my body, workman-like,
I did not argue nor bewail; but when
The flash and dip of equal oars had passed,
And I was left a thing for sky and sea
To encircle, gaze on, wonder at, not save—
The clear resolve which I had grasped and held,
Slipped as a dew-drop slips from some flower-cup
O'erweighted, and I longed to cry aloud
One sharp, great cry, and scatter the fixed will,
In fond self-pity. Have you watched night-long,
Above a face from which the life recedes,
And seen death set his seal before the dawn?
You do not shriek and clasp the hands, but just
When morning finds the world once more all good
And ready for wave's leap and swallow's flight,
There comes a drift from undiscovered flowers,
A drone of sailing bee, a dance of light
Among the awakened leaves, a touch, a tang,
A nameless nothing, and the world turns round,
And the full soul runs over, and tears flow,
And it is seen a piteous thing to die.
So fared it there with me; the ripple ran
Crisp to my feet; the tufted sea-pink bloomed
From a cleft rock, I saw the insects drop
From blossom into blossom; and the wide
Intolerable splendour of the sea,
Calm in a liquid hush of summer morn,
Girdled me, and no cloud relieved the sky.
I had refused to drink the proffered wine
Before they bound me, and my strength was less
Than needful: yet the cry escaped not, yet
My purpose had not fallen abroad in ruin;
Only the perfect knowledge I had won
Of things which fate decreed deserted me,
The vision I had held of life and death
Was blurred by some vague mist of piteousness,
Nor could I lean upon a steadfast will.
Therefore I closed both eyes resolved to search
Backwards across the abysm, and find Death there,
And hold him with my hand, and scan his face
By my own choice, and read his strict intent
On lip and brow,—not hunted to his feet
And cowering slavewise; ‘Death,’ I whispered, ‘Death,’
Calling him whom I needed: and he came.

Wherefore record the travail of the soul
Through darkness to grey light, the cloudy war,
The austere calm, the bitter victory?
It seemed that I had mastered fate, and held,
Still with shut eyes, the passion of my heart
Compressed, and cast the election of my will
Into that scale made heavy with the woe
Of all the world, and fair relinquished lives.
Suddenly the broad sea was vibrated,
And the air shaken with confused noise
Not like the steadfast plash and creak of oars,
And higher on my foot the ripple slid.
The monster was abroad beneath the sun.
This therefore was the moment—could my soul
Sustain her trial? And the soul replied
A swift, sure ‘Yes’: yet must I look forth once,
Confront my anguish, nor drop blindly down
From horror into horror: and I looked—
O thou deliverance, thou bright victory
I saw thee, and was saved! The middle air
Was cleft by thy impatience of revenge,
Thy zeal to render freedom to things bound:
The conquest sitting on thy brow, the joy
Of thy unerring flight became to me
Nowise mere hope, but full enfranchisement.
A sculptor of the isles has carved the deed
Upon a temple's frieze; the maiden chained
Lifts one free arm across her eyes to hide
The terror of the moment, and her head
Sideways averted writhes the slender neck:
While with a careless grace in flying curve,
And glad like Hermes in his aery poise,
Toward the gaping throat a youth extends
The sword held lightly. When to sacrifice
I pass at morn with my tall Sthenelos,
I smile, but do not speak. No! when my gaze
First met him I was saved; because the world
Could hold so brave a creature I was free:
Here one had come with not my father's eyes
Which darkened to the clamour of the crowd,
And gave a grieved assent; not with the eyes
Of anguish-stricken Cassiopeia, dry
And staring as I passed her to the boat.
Was not the beauty of his strength and youth
Warrant for many good things in the world
Which could not be so poor while nourishing him?
What faithlessness of heart could countervail
The witness of that brow? What dastard chains?
Did he not testify of sovereign powers
O'ermatching evil, awful charities
Which save and slay, the terror of clear joy,
Unquenchable intolerance of ill,
Order subduing chaos, beauty pledged
To conquest of all foul deformities?
And was there need to turn my head aside,
I, who had one sole thing to do, no more,
To watch the deed? I know the careless grace
My Perseus wears in manage of the steed,
Or shooting the swift disc: not such the mode
Of that victorious moment of descent
When the large tranquil might his soul contains
Was gathered for a swift abolishment
Of proud brute-tyranny. He seemed in air
A shining spear which hisses in its speed
And smites through boss and breastplate. Did he see
Andromeda, who never glanced at her
But set his face against the evil thing?
I know not; yet one truth I may not doubt
How ere the wallowing monster blind and vast
Turned a white belly to the sun, he stood
Beside me with some word of comfort strong
Nourishing the heart like choral harmonies.
O this was then my joy, that I could give
A soul not saved from wretched female fright,
Or anarchy of self-abandoned will,
But one which had achieved deliverance,
And wrought with shaping hands among the stuff
Which fate presented. Had I shrunk from Death?
Might I not therefore unashamed accept—
In a calm wonder of unfaltering joy—
Life, the fair gift he laid before my feet?
Somewhat a partner of his deed I seemed;
His equal? Nay, yet upright at his side
Scarce lower by a head and helmet's height
Touching my Perseus' shoulder.

He has wrought
Great deeds. Athena loves to honour him;
And I have borne him sons. Look, yonder goes
Lifting the bow, Eleios, the last-born.”