The Unknown Sea

by Clemence Housman

'I can, ah! I can.'

'Yet the dear heart of the sea holds me fast through all; with imperious kindness it seizes my will when my love grows slackest, and draws me out of the shallows; and down, and down I drift, like weed.'

'Diadyomene, have you never defied your fear, and kept from sleep, and kept from the sea?'

Her voice sank. 'If I did—my dream might—come true.

'Agonistes, what I saw in your eyes was—I doubted—my dream—coming true.

'No; I will not look again.'

Christian's voice was as low and shaken as hers. 'What was there?' he said.

Again and again she gathered her breath for speech, yet at last was scarce audible.

'A horror—a living human body—tortured with fire and scourge—flayed.'

She lifted one glance and took the imprint of a strange tranced face, bloodless as death, void of speculation. Prone she sank to the edge of the altar rock, for such passions leapt up and grappled in desperate conflict as dissolved her strength under exquisite throes.