Thus, like a wind, went by a thousand years.
Anhungered, yet no comrade of the wolf,
And cold, but with no power upon the sun,
A master of this world that mastered him!
Thus, like a cloud, went by a thousand years.
Who chained this other giant in his heart
That heaved and burned like Etna? Heavily
He bent his brows and wondered and was dumb.
And, like one wave, a thousand years went by.
He raised his matted head and scanned the stars.
He stood erect! He lifted his uncouth arms!
With inarticulate sounds his uncouth lips
Wrestled and strove—I am full-fed, and yet
I hunger!
Who set this fiercer famine in my maw?
Can I eat moons, gorge on the Milky Way,
Swill sunsets down, or sup the wash of the dawn
Out of the rolling swine-troughs of the sea?
Can I drink oceans, lie beneath the mountains,
And nuzzle their heavy boulders like a cub
Sucking the dark teats of the tigress? Who,
Who set this deeper hunger in my heart?
And the dark forest echoed—Who? Ah, who?
"I hunger!"
And the night-wind answered him,
"Hunt, then, for food."
"I hunger!"
And the sleek gorged lioness
Drew nigh him, dripping freshly from the kill,
Redder her lolling tongue, whiter her fangs,
And gazed with ignorant eyes of golden flame.
"I hunger!"
Like a breaking sea his cry
Swept through the night. Against his swarthy knees
She rubbed the red wet velvet of her ears
With mellow thunders of unweeting bliss,
Purring—Ah, seek, and you shall find.
Ah, seek, and you shall slaughter, gorge, ah seek,
Seek, seek, you shall feed full, ah seek, ah seek.