All the while
Zeus smiled to see Apollo’s punishment.
And Hera, who with woman’s subtlety,
Knew that there shone within Apollo’s soul
A face like to the face of Artemis,
His virgin sister, delicate and chaste,
And to o’ercome such whiteness and reserve
Had been Apollo’s madness from his birth,
Laughed freely with the muses as she said:
“Thus is the masculine spirit ever caught
By its own lure, let Zeus himself take heed
Lest sometime he be snared.”
So when Olympus
Grew dull, the gods for fun looked o’er the ramparts
And spied upon Apollo at the board
With all Chione’s family; or at night
Beside Chione and the little faces
Which every year increased. Or on Apollo
About his bitter task of shepherding
To win the bread for faded Chione
And for the children.
Thus the nine years passed.
Then Zeus, avenged, sent all the muses down
To bring Apollo back, and to Olympus
Humbled and sorrowful he came again,
With wrinkles and a touch of whitened hair,
And a lack-lustre eye, which all the art
Of Aphrodite after many days
Could scarce remove.
Then Chione told her father
That Acteus was not a merchant from the city.
“Too late,” she said, “I found he had deceived me
And masked his shepherd calling.”
To which her father
The ancient soldier, servitor of the gods
And rich in land: “Yea, daughter, he deceived you.
Now he has run away, abandoned you,
May the gods note it and avenge the wrong.”
STEAM SHOVEL CUT
Steam Shovel Cut lies through a wood,
And the trestle’s at the end.
And north are the lonely Fillmore Hills,
And south the river’s bend.
It’s Christmas day and the blue on the hill
Is flapped by a flying crow.
And the steel of the railroad track is cold,
And the Cut is piled with snow.
What is that there by the trestle’s end
Where the Cut slopes down to the slough?
That’s Cora Williams lying there
In her cloak of faded blue.
Her skirt is red as a northern spy,
And her mittens blackberry black.
And under her cotton underskirt
There’s a green place on her back.