I.
When the Pleiads rose no more
Rowed the heroes to the shore,
Much in fear of winter gales,
And they furled the wing-like sails,
Carrying up the corded bales
From the hollow, oaken Argo
Till they lightened her of cargo.
Then they beached her for the winter
Where nor rocks nor waves could splinter
There the heroes made their camp
By the whispering seashore damp,
But the mighty Heracles,
Tired of looking at the seas,
Rose and left those sounding beaches
For the upland's wind-swept reaches.
In a little beechwood gray
Hylas fed his flock that day,
Playing all alone but gayly
Where he fed his lambkins daily,
Singing to a five-stringed psalter
By a little woodland altar,
Where a shepherd's fire of oak
Made a ribbon scarf of smoke,
Curling highly, thinly, bluely,
From the faggots cut but newly.
Moving with a god-like ease,
Through the gray boles of the trees,
Hylas first spied Heracles,
Looming vast as huge Orion,
Tawny in his skin of lion;
While through interspace of leaves,
Through the network autumn weaves,
Fell bronze sunshine and bronze leaves
On the lion skin with its paws,
Dangling, fringed with crescent claws.
Softly all the flock were bleating
As he gave the lad good greeting,
Rubbing down with leaves his club,
Mighty as a chariot hub—
Hylas stood with golden locks,
Glowing mid the lichened rocks,
Laughing in the silver beeches,
White as milk and tanned like peaches.
Then the hero loved the lad,
For his beauty made him glad,
And he took him on his knees;
Tender was huge Heracles,
Telling him of strange journeys
To the far Hesperides,
Crossing oceans in a bowl,
Till he won him heart and soul.
So these two were friends forever,
Never seen apart, together
Were they all that winter weather.
And the hero taught the youth
How to shoot and tell the truth,
How to drive a furrow straight,
Plowing, plowing, very early
When the frosty grass was curly—
Taught him how to play the lyre,
Till each wire, and wire, and wire
Sang together like a choir;
And at night young Hylas crept
In the lion skin where he slept
Where the lowing oxen team
Stood beneath the smoke-browned beam,
Slept beside the hero clypt
By the giant, downy lipped.
Centuries have fled away
Since the hero came that day
To the little beechwood gray
Where young Hylas was at play;
But I shall, as poets may,
Wreathe these roses for his head,
For his beauty is not dead.
And a voice has sung to me
Like a memory of the sea,
Sung this ancient threnody,
Like an autumn melody:
"Alas! Alas! for thee,
Hylas, Alas!"
II.
When the springtime came again
And the shepherd to his spen
Led his cloudy flock again,
When the awkward lambkins bounded
While the twin pipes whistling sounded,
And old Charon from his glen
Saw below the smoke of men
Curling thinly from the trees,
Then the heroes sought the seas.
Then the Argo left the shore,
For each eager warrior thought,
When the Pleiads rose once more,
Of the golden fleece he sought.
Hylas went with Heracles,
Dancing to the dancing seas,
And he stood high in the bow,
Golden by the carven prow,
Or he lay within the furls
With the sea damp on his curls.
But at home his mother wept
With her hair upon the floor,
By the hearth where he had slept,
For her woman's heart was sore,
Saying, "He is gone from me!
Gone across the sounding sea!
Ai! Ai! Woe is me!
Alas! Alas! for thee,
Hylas, Alas!"