II
- Hang it all, Robert Browning,
- there can be but the one "Sordello."
- But Sordello, and my Sordello?
- Lo Sordels si fo di Mantovana.
- So-shu churned in the sea.
- Seal sports in the spray-whited circles of cliff-wash,
- Sleek head, daughter of Lir,
- eyes of Picasso
- Under black fur-hood, lithe daughter of Ocean;
- And the wave runs in the beach-groove:
- "Eleanor, ελεναυς and ελεπτολις!"
- And poor old Homer blind, blind, as a bat,
- Ear, ear for the sea-surge, murmur of old men's voices:
- "Let her go back to the ships,
- Back among Grecian faces, lest evil come on our own,
- Evil and further evil, and a curse cursed on our children,
- Moves, yes she moves like a goddess
- And has the face of a god
- and the voice of Schoeney's daughters,
- And doom goes with her in walking,
- Let her go back to the ships,
- back among Grecian voices."
- And by the beach-run, Tyro,
- Twisted arms of the sea-god,
- Lithe sinews of water, gripping her, cross-hold,
- And the blue-gray glass of the wave tents them,
- Glare azure of water, cold-welter, close cover.
- Quiet sun-tawny sand-stretch,
- The gulls broad out their wings,
- nipping between the splay feathers;
- Snipe come for their bath,
- bend out their wing-joints,
- Spread wet wings to the sun-film,
- And by Scios,
- to left of the Naxos passage,
- Naviform rock overgrown,
- algæ cling to its edge,
- There is a wine-red glow in the shallows,
- a tin flash in the sun-dazzle.
- The ship landed in Scios,
- men wanting spring-water,
- And by the rock-pool a young boy loggy with vine-must,
- "To Naxos? Yes, we'll take you to Naxos,
- Cum' along lad." "Not that way!"
- "Aye, that way is Naxos."
- And I said: "It's a straight ship."
- And an ex-convict out of Italy
- knocked me into the fore-stays,
- (He was wanted for manslaughter in Tuscany)
- And the whole twenty against me,
- Mad for a little slave money.
- And they took her out of Scios
- And off her course ...
- And the boy came to, again, with the racket,
- And looked out over the bows,
- and to eastward, and to the Naxos passage.
- God-sleight then, god-sleight:
- Ship stock fast in sea-swirl,
- Ivy upon the oars, King Pentheus,
- grapes with no seed but sea-foam,
- Ivy in scupper-hole.
- Aye, I, Acoetes, stood there,
- and the god stood by me,
- Water cutting under the keel,
- Sea-break from stern forrards,
- wake running off from the bow,
- And where was gunwale, there now was vine-trunk,
- And tenthril where cordage had been,
- grape-leaves on the rowlocks,
- Heavy vine on the oarshafts,
- And, out of nothing, a breathing,
- hot breath on my ankles,
- Beasts like shadows in glass,
- a furred tail upon nothingness.
- Lynx-purr, and heathery smell of beasts,
- where tar smell had been,
- Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
- eye-glitter out of black air.
- The sky overshot, dry, with no tempest,
- Sniff and pad-foot of beasts,
- fur brushing my knee-skin,
- Rustle of airy sheaths,
- dry forms in the æther.
- And the ship like a keel in ship-yard,
- slung like an ox in smith's sling,
- Ribs stuck fast in the ways,
- grape-cluster over pin-rack,
- void air taking pelt.
- Lifeless air become sinewed,
- feline leisure of panthers,
- Leopards sniffing the grape shoots by scupper-hole,
- Crouched panthers by fore-hatch,
- And the sea blue-deep about us,
- green-ruddy in shadows,
- And Lyæus: "From now, Acoetes, my altars,
- Fearing no bondage,
- fearing no cat of the wood,
- Safe with my lynxes,
- feeding grapes to my leopards,
- Olibanum is my incense,
- the vines grow in my homage."
- The back-swell now smooth in the rudder-chains,
- Black snout of a porpoise
- where Lycabs had been,
- Fish-scales on the oarsmen.
- And I worship.
- I have seen what I have seen.
- When they brought the boy I said:
- "He has a god in him,
- though I do not know which god."
- And they kicked me into the fore-stays.
- I have seen what I have seen:
- Medon's face like the face of a dory,
- Arms shrunk into fins. And you, Pentheus,
- Had as well listen to Tiresias, and to Cadmus,
- or your luck will go out of you.
- Fish-scales over groin muscles,
- lynx-purr amid sea ...
- And of a later year,
- pale in the wine-red algæ,
- If you will lean over the rock,
- the coral face under wave-tinge,
- Rose-paleness under water-shift,
- Ileuthyeria, fair Dafne of sea-bords,
- The swimmer's arms turned to branches,
- Who will say in what year,
- fleeing what band of tritons,
- The smooth brows, seen, and half seen,
- now ivory stillness.
- And So-shu churned in the sea, So-shu also,
- using the long moon for a churn-stick ...
- Lithe turning of water,
- sinews of Poseidon,
- Black azure and hyaline,
- glass wave over Tyro,
- Close cover, unstillness,
- bright welter of wave-cords,
- Then quiet water,
- quiet in the buff sands,
- Sea-fowl stretching wing-joints,
- splashing in rock-hollows and sand-hollows
- In the wave-runs by the half-dune;
- Glass-glint of wave in the tide-rips against sunlight,
- pallor of Hesperus,
- Grey peak of the wave,
- wave, colour of grape's pulp,
- Olive grey in the near,
- far, smoke grey of the rock-slide,
- Salmon-pink wings of the fish-hawk
- cast grey shadows in water,
- The tower like a one-eyed great goose
- cranes up out of the olive-grove,
- And we have heard the fauns chiding Proteus
- in the smell of hay under the olive-trees,
- And the frogs singing against the fauns
- in the half-light.
- And ...