The sun struck the ridge of white marble
before me:
white sun on white marble
was black:
the day was of ash,
blind, unrepentant, despoiled,
my soul cursed the race and the track,
you had lost.
You, lost at the last?
Ah fools,
so you threatened to win?
ah fools,
so you knew my brother?
Greeks all,
all crafty and feckless,
even so, had you guessed
what ran in his veins and mine,
what blood of Achæa,
had you dared,
dared enter the contest,
dared aspire with the rest?
You had gained,
you outleapt them;
a sudden, swift lift of the reins,
a sudden, swift, taut grip of the reins,
as suddenly loosed,
you had gained.
When death comes
I will see
no vision of after,
(as some count
there may be an hereafter,)
no thought of old lover,
no girl, no woman,
neither mother,
nor yet my father
who died for Achæa,
neither God with the harp
and the sun on His brow,
but thou,
O my brother.
When death comes,
instead of a vision,
(I will catch it in bronze)
you will stand
as you stood at the end,
(as the herald announced it,
proclaiming aloud,
“Achæa has won,”)
in-reining them now,
so quiet,
not turning to answer
the shout of the crowd.
The Look-out
BETTER the wind, the sea, the salt
in your eyes,
than this, this, this.
You grumble and sweat;
my ears are acute
to catch your complaint,
almost the sea’s roar is less
than your constant threat
of “back and back to the shore,
and let us rest.”