Artemis to Actaeon

NAY, lift me to thy lips, Life, and once more Pour the wild music through me-- I quivered in the reed-bed with my kind, Rooted in Lethe-bank, when at the dawn There came a groping shape of mystery Moving among us, that with random stroke Severed, and rapt me from my silent tribe, Pierced, fashioned, lipped me, sounding for a voice, Laughing on Lethe-bank--and in my throat I felt the wing-beat of the fledgeling notes, The bubble of godlike laughter in my throat. Such little songs she sang, Pursing her lips to fit the tiny pipe, They trickled from me like a slender spring That strings frail wood-growths on its crystal thread, Nor dreams of glassing cities, bearing ships. She sang, and bore me through the April world Matching the birds, doubling the insect-hum In the meadows, under the low-moving airs, And breathings of the scarce-articulate air When it makes mouths of grasses--but when the sky Burst into storm, and took great trees for pipes, She thrust me in her breast, and warm beneath Her cloudy vesture, on her terrible heart, I shook, and heard the battle. But more oft, Those early days, we moved in charmed woods, Where once, at dusk, she piped against a faun, And one warm dawn a tree became a nymph Listening; and trembled; and Life laughed and passed. And once we came to a great stream that bore The stars upon its bosom like a sea, And ships like stars; so to the sea we came. And there she raised me to her lips, and sent One swift pang through me; then refrained her hand, And whispered: "Hear--" and into my frail flanks, Into my bursting veins, the whole sea poured Its spaces and its thunder; and I feared. We came to cities, and Life piped on me Low calls to dreaming girls, In counting-house windows, through the c***k of gold, Flung cries that fired the captive brain of youth, And made the heavy merchant at his desk Curse us for a cracked hurdy-gurdy; Life Mimicked the hurdy-gurdy, and we passed. We climbed the slopes of solitude, and there Life met a god, who challenged her and said: "Thy pipe against my lyre!" But "Wait!" she laughed, And in my live flank dug a finger-hole, And wrung new music from it. Ah, the pain! We climbed and climbed, and left the god behind. We saw the earth spread vaster than the sea, With infinite surge of mountains surfed with snow, And a silence that was louder than the deep; But on the utmost pinnacle Life again Hid me, and I heard the terror in her hair. Safe in new vales, I ached for the old pang, And clamoured "Play me against a god again!" "Poor Marsyas-mortal--he shall bleed thee yet," She breathed and kissed me, stilling the dim need. But evermore it woke, and stabbed my flank With yearnings for new music and new pain. "Another note against another god!" I clamoured; and she answered: "Bide my time. Of every heart-wound I will make a stop, And drink thy life in music, pang by pang, But first thou must yield the notes I stored in thee At dawn beside the river. Take my lips." She kissed me like a lover, but I wept, Remembering that high song against the god, And the old songs slept in me, and I was dumb. We came to cavernous foul places, blind With harpy-wings, and sulphurous with the glare Of sinful furnaces--where hunger toiled, And pleasure gathered in a starveling prey, And death fed delicately on young bones. "Now sing!" cried Life, and set her lips to me. "Here are gods also. Wilt thou pipe for Dis?" My cry was drowned beneath the furnace roar, Choked by the sulphur-fumes; and beast-lipped gods Laughed down on me, and mouthed the flutes of hell. "Now sing!" said Life, reissuing to the stars; And wrung a new note from my wounded side. So came we to clear spaces, and the sea. And now I felt its volume in my heart, And my heart waxed with it, and Life played on me The song of the Infinite. "Now the stars," she said. Then from the utmost pinnacle again She poured me on the wild sidereal stream, And I grew with her great breathings, till we swept The interstellar spaces like new worlds Loosed from the fiery ruin of a star. Cold, cold we rested on black peaks again, Under black skies, under a groping wind; And Life, grown old, hugged me to a numb breast, Pressing numb lips against me. Suddenly A blade of silver severed the black peaks From the black sky, and earth was born again, Breathing and various, under a god's feet. A god! A god! I felt the heart of Life Leap under me, and my cold flanks shook again. He bore no lyre, he rang no challenge out, But Life warmed to him, warming me with her, And as he neared I felt beneath her hands The stab of a new wound that sucked my soul Forth in a new song from my throbbing throat. "His name--his name?" I whispered, but she shed The music faster, and I grew with it, Became a part of it, while Life and I Clung lip to lip, and I from her wrung song As she from me, one song, one ecstasy, In indistinguishable union blent, Till she became the flute and I the player. And lo! the song I played on her was more Than any she had drawn from me; it held The stars, the peaks, the cities, and the sea, The faun's catch, the nymph's tremor, and the heart Of dreaming girls, of toilers at the desk, Apollo's challenge on the sunrise slope, And the hiss of the night-gods mouthing flutes of hell-- All, to the dawn-wind's whisper in the reeds, When Life first came, a shape of mystery, Moving among us, and with random stroke Severed, and rapt me from my silent tribe. All this I wrung from her in that deep hour, While Love stood murmuring: "Play the god, poor grass!" Now, by that hour, I am a mate to thee Forever, Life, however spent and clogged, And tossed back useless to my native mud! Yea, groping for new reeds to fashion thee New instruments of anguish and delight, Thy hand shall leap to me, thy broken reed, Thine ear remember me, thy bosom thrill With the old subjection, then when Love and I Held thee, and fashioned thee, and made thee dance Like a slave-girl to her pipers--yea, thou yet Shalt hear my call, and dropping all thy toys Thou'lt lift me to thy lips, Life, and once more Pour the wild music through me--