NOR skin nor hide nor fleece
Shall cover you,
Nor curtain of crimson nor fine
Shelter of cedar-wood be over you,
Nor the fir-tree
Nor the pine.
Nor sight of whin nor gorse
Nor river-yew,
Nor fragrance of flowering bush,
Nor wailing of reed-bird to waken you,
Nor of linnet,
Nor of thrush.
Nor word nor touch nor sight
Of lover, you
Shall long through the night but for this:
The roll of the full tide to cover you
Without question,
Without kiss.
Sitalkas
THOU art come at length
more beautiful
than any cool god
in a chamber under
Lycia’s far coast,
than any high god
who touches us not
here in the seeded grass:
aye, than Argestes
scattering the broken leaves.
Hermonax
GODS of the sea;
Ino,
leaving warm meads
for the green, grey-green fastnesses
of the great deeps;
and Palemon,
bright seeker of sea-shaft,
hear me.
Let all whom the sea loves,
come to its altar front,
and I
who can offer no other sacrifice to thee
bring this.
Broken by great waves,
the wavelets flung it here,
this sea-gliding creature,
this strange creature like a weed,
covered with salt foam,
torn from the hillocks of rock.
I, Hermonax,
caster of nets,
risking chance,
plying the sea craft,
came on it.