LITTLE scavenger away,
touch not the door,
beat not the portal down,
cross not the sill,
silent until
my song, bright and shrill,
breathes out its lay.
Little scavenger avaunt,
tempt me with jeer and taunt,
yet you will wait to-day;
for it were surely ill
to mock and shout and revel;
it were more fit to tell
with flutes and calathes,
your mother’s praise.
After Troy
WE flung against their gods,
invincible, clear hate;
we fought;
frantic, we flung the last
imperious, desperate shaft
and lost:
we knew the loss
before they ever guessed
fortune had tossed to them
her favour and her whim;
but how were we depressed?
we lost yet as we pressed
our spearsmen on their best,
we knew their line invincible
because there fell
on them no shiverings
of the white enchanteress,
radiant Aphrodite’s spell:
we hurled our shafts of passion,
noblest hate,
and knew their cause was blest,
and knew their gods were nobler,
better taught in skill,
subtler with wit of thought,
yet had it been God’s will
that they not we should fall,
we know those fields had bled
with roses lesser red.
Cassandra
O Hymen king.
HYMEN, O Hymen king,
what bitter thing is this?
what shaft, tearing my heart?
what scar, what light, what fire
searing my eye-balls and my eyes with flame?
nameless, O spoken name,
king, lord, speak blameless Hymen.
Why do you blind my eyes?
why do you dart and pulse
till all the dark is home,
then find my soul
and ruthless draw it back?
scaling the scaleless,
opening the dark?
speak, nameless, power and might;
when will you leave me quite?
when will you break my wings
or leave them utterly free
to scale heaven endlessly?
A bitter, broken thing,
my heart, O Hymen lord,
yet neither drought nor sword
baffles men quite,
why must they feign to fear
my virgin glance?
feigned utterly or real
why do they shrink?
my trance frightens them,
breaks the dance,
empties the market place;
if I but pass they fall
back, frantically;
must always people mock?
unless they shrink and reel
as in the temple
at your uttered will.