A SONG OF THE SON

My cradle was the atom,

On the breast of the sea I slumbered

Through a long aeonian night

And wakened on the morning of the world!

The fern and the shrub and the tree

Were my playmates —

The wind was my nurse

Singing me wild songs.

I stretched out my hands to the rain.

And grew glad in the sun;

I dreamed of my sisters the stars

Of my brother the moon.

I was housed with the cattle;

For them I opened the doors of speech,

Turned their dull dreams

To the words of a song.

To him of the fang I was Terror!

In the light of my face he was furtive,

Shrank back to his den —

Ceasing to tear with his teeth.

I had learned to stand on my feet.

To smite with my hands,

To hurl a huge stone

At python and tiger.

I roared with wild laughter!

In the light of my brother the moon

I danced with my mate

To the dance of my sisters the stars.

At dawn I went forth

To hurl with the hammer

Or thrust with the spear,

And grew heavy from hunting.

I returned to the cave

And saw her white body

Naked against the sun

Red in the west on the mountains.

I drew near to my Love

Who saw me and sang

The song of the hunter

Home from the hunting.

The Babe at her breast she held up

And danced in her arms for his father —

Danced till he croodled and crowed,

Dimpled with joy of his father!

For them I builded a hut

Of saplings and wattles,

And she with her fingers

Fashioned bowls from the clay.

We dreamed as we toiled,

We sang as we dreamed;

And ever the task

Took the form of our song:

We dreamed that the wilderness

Blossomed; that the meadows

Thickened with ripening corn

Yellow and green in the noontide.

We sang of the millet and wheat,

Of the barley and rye

And the purple grape-clusters

Hanging down from the vine.

We sang of the flax

And the oil of the olive

After the time of the sound

Of the flails on the floor.

We dreamed that a city

Rose out of the jungle —

A city of towers and walls,

Of palaces, statues and pictures.

So great was our love

That, though we died,

By birth we came back

To keep tryst with each other!

She was proud Semiramis;

Helen of Troy was she;

Hers was the song of Miriam,

And the red-wet hands of Jael!

Once was her dear name Sappho,

Singing the song of the cave —

Of him who hurled with the stone,

The hunter home from the hunting!

Where the Nile is an amber bow

She dreamed and waited for me

Coming down in my trireme of war,

Enslaved at her smile!

So through the ages we met,

So through the ages we parted:

Each time that we met

After the silence that sundered,

Fairer and fairer was she;

And I grew more like a god,

Cleansed and made strong by the tears

Shed for the sorrow we suffered;

Till one day we stood in a garden —

A little green garden of lilies

Hard by a Tomb that was open

Wide to the joy of the morning;

There in the hush of the dayspring

Breathing of dew-sprinkled lilies

White as the snow upon Hermon,

We knew that our Love was immortal!

Out of the wildness

We had grown us a rose —

Out of its thorns

We had fashioned a crown!