Bromios
The withered bonds are broken.
The waxed reeds and the double pipe
Clamour about me;
The hot wind swirls
Through the red pine trunks.
Io! the fauns and the satyrs.
The touch of their shagged curled fur
And blunt horns!
They have wine in heavy craters
Painted black and red;
Wine to splash on her white body.
Io!
She shrinks from the cold shower—
Afraid, afraid!
Let the Maenads break through the myrtles
And the boughs of the rohododaphnai.
Let them tear the quick deers’ flesh.
Ah, the cruel, exquisite fingers!
Io!
I have brought you the brown clusters,
The ivy-boughs and pine-cones.
Your breasts are cold-sea-ripples,
But they smell of the warm grasses.
Throw wide the chiton and the peplum,
Maidens of the Dew.
Beautiful are your bodies, O Maenads,
Beautiful the sudden folds,
The vanishing curves of the white linen
About you.
Io!
Hear the rich laughter of the forest,
The cymbals,
The trampling of the panisks and the centaurs.
The objectors say that that is merely a copy. It lays itself open to that criticism, certainly, but how exquisite a copy. And how difficult to make such a copy! Try it and see! Mr. Aldington is a master of suggestion. His descriptions are never overloaded, and yet there is the picture. In the next stanza to the last, notice the blowing, rippling linen over the white bodies of the young girls.
A little of this goes a long way, you say. Yes, I think that is true, but Mr. Aldington has other strings to play. He has irony, a not-too-common trait in modern poetry. I know few things more beautiful, and more ironical than this: