Panama and Other Poems Narrative and Occasional :: :: University of Virginia Library

Semele lying in the arms of Love
In madness of too curious womankind,
Or in a woman's perilous vanity
Looked up into his face and murmured thus:
“Thou visitest me secret from the stars,
“But as an earthly lover, yet I know,
“Thou art a god descending in deep night
“Down from the flashing silence of the sky,
“Immortal for the touch of mortal lips.
“As thou art god, belovèd, swear to me
“One thing that I shall ask thee to fulfil.”
Then answered splendid Love in human guise:
“I swear to thee the oath no god may break
“By stream of Styx, the holy wave of hell,
“River that steals amid exhausted ghosts,
“For ever rippling in the ears of souls,
“That whatsoe'er thou askest I will grant;
“And yet be fearful of too large request,
“Remember thou art mortal and must pass.”

Then Semele said sweetly in his ear:
“This then I ask, that when thou com'st again,
“It shall be in full glory as a God,
“In flaming splendour and in rolling power,
“Love me a clear God, not as God disguised!
“I crave thy majesty as thou my kiss.”
She sighed once on his lips, then hid her face.
But Love was sorely troubled at her words.
“Alas!” he cried, “release me from this oath,
“Which if I swear it Styx will ne'er relent;
“Should thus I visit thee, then would'st thou die,
“Shrivelled in glory insupportable.
“Then ask some other thing that thou may st live,
“Since, if I woo thee in my proper shape,
“Thou shalt be strewn in ashes at my feet.”
“But I will ask no other thing of thee,”
Semele answered, “and what thou hast said,
“Incites me, being woman, to persist;
“Then if I die, I die a dazzling death.
“Swear then by Styx that thou wilt do this thing.”
Then by that Stygian river, by whose wave
No God may swear and of his oath be free,

Love swore that he would come in his own shape,
Knowing that of that glory she must die.
And Acheron heard and through her stagnant pools
Muttering, recorded sullenly the oath.
So on the after-midnight when she stood
Mortal, with fluttering heart on the dark hill,
A God woke up the heaven and coming down,
Lightened and thundered out of her the life,
Making the woman ashes in mid-air.