MEDUSA TO PERSEUS
Perseus, draw near to me and fear me not;
Think’st thou I have not listened for thy step
Through all the eons of my awful doom,
As on the earth when light of Helios fades
The young maid listens for her lover’s step
Crushing the daisies and the dewy grass?
No lover’s feet will ever come to me
But thine are dearer; and the asphodel
Thou bearest fairer than Love’s fairest flowers.
Draw near, and near, and nearer; I would feel
The end of this long waiting; I would be
For one quick moment all I might have been—
Woman and tender; drain at this one draught
My woman’s cup; tear-jeweled, brimmed with pain:
Ay! By these tears I cheat thee, Mighty Maid,
And by this pain—my heart is human still!
Thy curse fell impotent, that left me yet
Bond-thrall to one dark prover of humanity.
Dreams; old, old dreams that gather in the dusk;
Death’s dusk that soon will end them! How they press
Upon me! Voices that I loved but never knew;
Strong hands that clung across my black despair;
Eyes that were stars of many a night that else
Had known no morning. Oh! life, life, life, life!
What hast thou given me—that would have made
Thee rich with giving? Only bitter breath
And tears; loathing of them I would have loved;
And fear of them whose fears I would have borne.
Truly thou wert a generous patron!
I thank thee—that thou favor me no more!
How wan those vapors rise from this sad place,
As if they too would seek a brighter world;
A world of heat and frost and night and sun!
So have I, sitting, watched them hour by hour;
Seeing in each some hearth smoke newly lit,
Some sweet, small home where happiness had room.
How have I hungered in this silence for
Earth’s common sounds; the crying and the mirth!
Her poorest field I would have tilled with love;
Her roughest path I would have walked with joy.
These idle hands had worn them to the bone
In common tasks and found the labor sweet;
Served slave to slaves, could any serving buy
Or beg, or bribe, the meanest human lot.
Alas! in this dim cave they could but grope
Each into each and, clasping, feign to hold
The grasp of friend, the hand of love and kin:
So out of moans my lips would form strange words;
All tender, crooning, soft and slow and hushed;
And warm, wet mouths in dreams have touched my breast,
Seeking for food above the heart that breaks.
But now the sleep—the end—the doom fulfilled!
Hope, fear, despair—I bid ye long farewell—
Here at this brink whereon your feet must turn
Backward to haunt some other mortal soul:
For I am free—am free—am free at last!
Wrapped round with death as with a royal robe!
Sisters, farewell! I would that ye might keep
Some memory of the tortured human heart
That vexed your silence with its agony,
And loved while vexing. Perseus, the sword!
Strike swift! I would be gone on what far way
A soul must take to seek the Other World.
Stay not for pleadings and petitionings;
I crave no gift the Gods can give but rest—
Strike deep and strong and sure and set me free.