ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES

So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries,

Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake

Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life;

Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate

Should dress my image with some faded poor

Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object

Such slackness to my worshippers who turn

Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand,

As they had climbed Olumpos to report

Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne —

I interposed: and, this eventful night

( While round the funeral pyre the populace

Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound

Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped

O'er the dead body of their withered prince,

And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated

On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab

‘ T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief —

As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed

Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night,

And the gay fire, elate with mastery,

Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars

Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,

And splendid gums like gold ) my potency

Conveyed the perished man to my retreat

In the thrice-venerable forest here.

And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now

The berried plant, is Phoibos’ son of fame,

Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught

The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,

To know their secret'st virtue and express

The saving soul of all: who so has soothed

With layers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,

Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,

And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,

And laid the strips and lagged ends of flesh

Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot

Of every tortured limb — that now he lies

As if mere sleep possessed him underneath

These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer,

Divine presenter of the healing rod,

Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,

Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!

Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!

And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,

Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves

That strew the turf around the twain! While I

Await, in fitting silence, the event.