Toward the Piræus

Slay with your eyes, Greek,men over the face of the earth,slay with your eyes, the host,puny, passionless, weak.

Break as the ranks of steelbroke when the Persian lost:craven, we hated them then:now we would count them Godsbeside these, spawn of the earth.

Grant us your mantle, Greek;grant us but oneto fright (as your eyes) with a sword,men, craven and weak,grant us but one to strikeone blow for you, passionate Greek.

You would have broken my wings,but the very fact that you knewI had wings, set some sealon my bitter heart, my heartbroke and fluttered and sang.

You would have snared me,and scattered the strands of my nest;but the very fact that you saw,sheltered me, claimed me,set me apart from the rest

Of men--of men, made you a god,and me, claimed me, set me apartand the song in my breast,yours, yours forever--if I escape your evil heart.

I loved you:men have writ and women have saidthey loved,but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,intense and may not move,

till the fumes pass over;and may not falter or break,till the priest has caught the wordsthat mar or makea deme or a ravaged town;so I, though my knees tremble,my heart break,must note the rumbling,heed only the shudderingdown in the fissure beneath the rockof the temple floor;

must wait and watchand may not turn nor move,nor break from my trance to speakso slight, so sweet,so simple a word as love.

What had you donehad you been true,I can not think,I may not know.

What could we dowere I not wise,what play invent,what joy devise?

(Yet were you lost,who were there then,to circumventthe tricks of men?)

What can we do,for curious lieshave filled your heart,and in my eyessorrow has writthat I am wise.

If I had been a boy,I would have worshipped your grace,I would have flung my worshipbefore your feet,I would have followed apart,glad, rent with an ecstasyto watch you turnyour great head, set on the throat,thick, dark with its sinews,burned and wroughtlike the olive stalk,and the noble chinand the throat.

I would have stood,and watched and watchedand burned,and when in the night,from the many hosts, your slaves,and warriors and serving menyou had turnedto the purple couch and the flameof the woman, tall like the cypress treethat flames sudden and swift and freeas with crackle of golden resinand cones and the locks flung freelike the cypress limbs,bound, caught and shaken and loosed,bound, caught and riven and boundand loosened again,as in rain of a kingly stormor wind full from a desert plain.

So, when you had risenfrom all the lethargy of love and its heat,you would have summoned me,me alone,and found my hands,beyond all the hands in the world,cold, cold, cold,intolerably cold and sweet.

It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,only I knew that you, like myself, were sickof the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lispsof love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.

It was not chastity that made me wild, but fearthat my weapon, tempered in different heat,was over-matched by yours, and your handskilled to yield death-blows, might break