Would the winds blow me back
Or the waves hurl me home?
Ah, to touch in the track
Where the pine learnt to roam
Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-gods,
cool blossoms of water and foam!
CHORUS.
The gods may release
That they made fast;
Thy soul shall have ease
In thy limbs at the last;
But what shall they give thee for life,
sweet life that is overpast?
MELEAGER.
Not the life of men's veins,
Not of flesh that conceives;
But the grace that remains,
The fair beauty that cleaves
To the life of the rains in the grasses,
the life of the dews on the leaves.
CHORUS.
Thou wert helmsman and chief,
Wilt thou turn in an hour,
Thy limbs to the leaf,
Thy face to the flower,
Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods
who divide and devour?
MELEAGER.
The years are hungry,
They wail all their days;
The gods wax angry
And weary of praise;
And who shall bridle their lips?
and who shall straiten their ways?