Thetis

He had asked for immortal lifein the old days and had grown old,now he had aged apace,he asked for his youth,and I, Thetis, granted him

freedom under the seadrip and welter of weeds,the drift of the fringing grass,the gift of the never-withering moss,and the flowering reed,

and most,beauty of fifty nereids,sisters of nine,I one of their least,yet great and a goddess,granted Pelius,

So I crept, at last,a crescent, a curve of a wave,(a man would have thought,had he watched for his netson the beach)a dolphin, a glistening fish,that burnt and caught for its light,the light of the undercrestof the lifting tide,a fish with silver for breast,with no light but the lightof the sea it reflects.

Little he would have guessed,(had such a onewatched by his nets,)that a goddess flung from the crestof the wave the blue of its ownbright tress of hair,the blue of the painted stuffit wore for dress.

No man would have known save he,whose coming I sensed as I strungmy pearl and agate and pearl,to mark the beat and the stressof the lilt of my song.

Who dreams of a son,save one,childless, having no brightface to flatter its own,who dreams of a son?

Nereids under the sea,my sisters, fifty and one,(counting myself)they dream of a childof water and sea,with hair of the softest,to lie along the curveof fragile, tiny bones,yet more beautiful each than each,hair more bright and long,to rival its own.

Each would have for a child,a stray self, furtive and wild,to dive and leap to the wind,to wheedle and coaxthe stray birds bright and blandof foreign strands,to crawl and stretch on the sands,each would have for its own,a daughter for child.

Who dreams, who sings of a son?I, Thetis, alone.

When I had finished my song,and dropped the last seed-pearl,and flung the neckletabout my throatand found it none too bright,not bright enough nor paleenough, not like the moon that creepsbeneath the sea,between the lift of crest and crest,had tried it onand found it notquite fair enoughto fill the nightof my blue folds of bluest dresswith moon for light,I cast the beads aside and leapt,myself all bluewith no bright glossof pearls for crescent light;

but one alert, all blue and wet,I flung myself, an arrow’s flight,straight upwardthrough the blue of nightthat was my palace wall,and crept to where I saw the markof feet, a rare foot-fall:

Achilles’ sandal on the beach,could one mistake?perhaps a lover or a nymph,lost from the tangled fern and brake,that lines the upper shelf of land,perhaps a goddess or a nymphmight so mistakeAchilles’ footprint for the traceof a bright god alert to trackthe panther where he slinks for thirstacross the sand;

perhaps a goddess or a nymph,might think a god had crossed the trackof weed and drift,had broken here this stem of reed,had turned this sea-shell to the light:

So she must stoop, this goddess girl,or nymph, with crest of blossoming woodabout her hair for cap or crown,must stoop and kneel and bending down,must kiss the print of such a one.

Not I, the mother, Thetis self,I stretched and lay, a river’s slimdark length,a rivulet where it leaves the wood,and meets the sea,I lay along the burning sand,a river’s blue.