Nourishing the heart like choral harmonies. O this was then my joy, that I could give A soul not saved from wretched female fright, But one which had achieved deliverance, And wrought with shaping hands among the stuff In a calm wonder of unfaltering joy— Scarce lower by a head and helmet's height, Great deeds. He has wrought Athena loves to honour him ; And I have borne him sons. Look, yonder goes Lifting the bow, Eleios, the last-born. EURYDICE. "Now must this waste of vain desire have end: And silence of the senses; so no more My heart helps thine, and henceforth there remains No gift to thee from me, who would give all, Only the memory of me growing faint Until I seem a thing incredible, Some high, sweet dream, which was not, nor could be. Aye, and in idle fields of asphodel Must it not be that I shall fade indeed, No memory of me, but myself; these hands Pre-eminent to dare and to achieve, No joy for climbing to, no clear resolve From which the soul swerves never, no ill thing To rid the world of, till I am no more And meet to be another thing than wife. Would that it had been thus: when the song ceased And laughterless Aidoneus lifted up The face, and turned his grave persistent eyes Upon the singer, I had forward stepped And spoken-King! he has wrought well, nor failed, Who ever heard divine large song like this, Keener than sunbeam, wider than the air, And shapely as the mould of faultless fruit? Grant me the naked trial of the will Divested of all colour, scents and song: The deed concerns the wife; I claim O then because Persephone was by my share.' With shadowed eyes when Orpheus sang of flowers, Had led the way. I know how in that mood Where mine left lightest pressure; so are passed So speed we to the day; and now we touch The gladdest tears that ever woman shed, The sustenance and comfort of his arms. Self-foolery of dreams; come bitter truth. Yet he has sung at least a perfect song |