Circe

The sun drops luridly into the west;

darkness has raised her arms to draw him down

before the time, not waiting as of wont

till he has come to her behind the sea;

and the smooth waves grow sullen in the gloom

and wear their threatening purple; more and more

the plain of waters sways and seems to rise

convexly from its level of the shores;

and low dull thunder rolls along the beach:

there will be storm at last, storm, glorious storm.

Oh welcome, welcome, though it rend my bowers,

scattering my blossomed roses like the dust,

splitting the shrieking branches, tossing down

my riotous vines with their young half-tinged grapes

like small round amethysts or beryls strung

tumultuously in clusters, though it sate

its ravenous spite among my goodliest pines

standing there round and still against the sky

that makes blue lakes between their sombre tufts,

or harry from my silvery olive slopes

some hoary king whose gnarled fantastic limbs

wear crooked armour of a thousand years;

though it will hurl high on my flowery shores

the hostile wave that rives at the poor sward

and drags it down the slants, that swirls its foam

over my terraces, shakes their firm blocks

of great bright marbles into tumbled heaps,

and makes my preached and mossy labyrinths,

where the small odorous blossoms grow like stars

strewn in the milky way, a briny marsh.

What matter? let it come and bring me change,

breaking the sickly sweet monotony.

I am too weary of this long bright calm;

always the same blue sky, always the sea

the same blue perfect likeness of the sky,

one rose to match the other that has waned,

to-morrow's dawn the twin of yesterday's;

and every night the ceaseless crickets chirp

the same long joy and the late strain of birds

repeats their strain of all the even month;

and changelessly the petty plashing surfs

bubble their chiming burden round the stones;

dusk after dusk brings the same languid trance

upon the shadowy hills, and in the fields

the waves of fireflies come and go the same,

making the very flash of light and stir

vex one like dronings of the spinning wheel.

Give me some change. Must life be only sweet,

all honey-pap as babes would have their food?

And, if my heart must always be adrowse

in a hush of stagnant sunshine, give me then

something outside me stirring; let the storm

break up the sluggish beauty, let it fall

beaten below the feet of passionate winds,

and then to-morrow waken jubilant

in a new birth: let me see subtle joy

of anguish and of hopes, of change and growth.

What fate is mine who, far apart from pains

and fears and turmoils of the cross-grained world,

dwell, like a lonely god, in a charmed isle

where I am first and only, and, like one

who should love poisonous savours more than mead,

long for a tempest on me and grow sick

of resting, and divine free carelessness!

Oh me, I am a woman, not a god;

yea, those who tend me even are more than I,

my nymphs who have the souls of flowers and birds

singing and blossoming immortally.

Ah me! these love a day and laugh again,

and loving, laughing, find a full content;

but I know nought of peace, and have not loved.

Where is my love? Does some one cry for me,

not knowing whom he calls? does his soul cry

for mine to grow beside it, grow in it?

does he beseech the gods to give him me,

the one unknown rare woman by whose side

no other woman, thrice as beautiful,

should once seem fair to him; to whose voice heard

in any common tones no sweetest sound

of love made melody on silver lutes,

or singing like Apollo's when the gods

grow pale with happy listening, might be peered

for making music to him; whom once found

there will be no more seeking anything?

Oh love, oh love, oh love, art not yet come

out of the waiting shadows into life?

art not yet come after so many years

that I have longed for thee? Come! I am here.

Not yet. For surely I should feel a sound

of his far answering, if now in the world

he sought me who will seek me—Oh ye gods

will he not seek me? Is it all a dream?

will there be never never such a man?

will there be only these, these bestial things

who wallow in my styes, or mop and mow

among the trees, or munch in pens and byres,

or snarl and filch behind their wattled coops;

these things who had believed that they were men?

Nay but he will come. Why am I so fair,

and marvellously minded, and with sight

which flashes suddenly on hidden things,

as the gods see who do not need to look?

why wear I in my eyes that stronger power

than basilisks, whose gaze can only kill,

to draw men's souls to me to live or die

as I would have them? why am I given pride

which yet longs to be broken, and this scorn

cruel and vengeful for the lesser men

who meet the smiles I waste for lack of him

and grow too glad? why am I who I am,

but for the sake of him whom fate will send

one day to be my master utterly,

that he should take me, the desire of all,

whom only he in the world could bow to him?

Oh sunlike glory of pale glittering hairs,

bright as the filmy wires my weavers take

to make me golden gauzes; oh deep eyes,

darker and softer than the bluest dusk

of August violets, darker and deep

like crystal fathomless lakes in summer noons;

oh sad sweet longing smile; oh lips that tempt

my very self to kisses; oh round cheeks,

tenderly radiant with the even flush

of pale smoothed coral; perfect lovely face

answering my gaze from out this fleckless pool;

wonder of glossy shoulders, chiselled limbs;

should I be so your lover as I am,

drinking an exquisite joy to watch you thus

in all a hundred changes through the day,

but that I love you for him till he comes,

but that my beauty means his loving it?

Oh, look! a speck on this side of the sun,

coming—yes, coming with the rising wind

that frays the darkening cloud-wrack on the verge

and in a little while will leap abroad,

spattering the sky with rushing blacknesses,

dashing the hissing mountainous waves at the stars.

'Twill drive me that black speck a shuddering hulk

caught in the buffeting waves, dashed impotent

from ridge to ridge, will drive it in the night

with that dull jarring crash upon the beach,

and the cries for help and the cries of fear and hope.

And then to-morrow they will thoughtfully,

with grave low voices, count their perils up,

and thank the gods for having let them live,

and tell of wives or mothers in their homes,

and children, who would have such loss in them

that they must weep, and may be I weep too,

with fancy of the weepings had they died.

And the next morrow they will feel their ease

and sigh with sleek content, or laugh elate,

tasting delights of rest and revelling,

music and perfumes, joyaunce for the eyes

of rosy faces and luxurious pomps,

the savour of the banquet and the glow

and fragrance of the wine-cup; and they'll talk

how good it is to house in palaces

out of the storms and struggles, and what luck

strewed their good ship on our accessless coast.

Then the next day the beast in them will wake,

and one will strike and bicker, and one swell

with puffed up greatness, and one gibe and strut

in apish pranks, and one will line his sleeve

with pilfered booties, and one snatch the gems

out of the carven goblets as they pass,

one will grow mad with fever of the wine,

and one will sluggishly besot himself,

and one be lewd, and one be gluttonous;

and I shall sickly look, and loathe them all.

Oh my rare cup! my pure and crystal cup,

with not one speck of colour to make false

the passing lights, or flaw to make them swerve!

My cup of Truth! How the lost fools will laugh

and thank me for my boon, as if I gave

some momentary flash of the gods' joy,

to drink where I have drunk and touch the touch

of my lips with their own! Aye, let them touch.

Too cruel am I? And the silly beasts,

crowding around me when I pass their way,

glower on me and, although they love me still,

(with their poor sorts of love such as they could,)

call wrath and vengeance to their humid eyes

to scare me into mercy, or creep near

with piteous fawnings, supplicating bleats.

Too cruel? Did I choose them what they are?

or change them from themselves by poisonous charms?

But any draught, pure water, natural wine,

out of my cup, revealed them to themselves

and to each other. Change? there was no change;

only disguise gone from them unawares:

and had there been one right true man of them

he would have drunk the draught as I had drunk,

and stood unchanged, and looked me in the eyes,

abashing me before him. But these things—

why, which of them has even shown the kind

of some one nobler beast? Pah, yapping wolves

and pitiless stealthy wild-cats, curs and apes

and gorging swine and slinking venomous snakes

all false and ravenous and sensual brutes

that shame the Earth that bore them, these they are.

Lo, lo! the shivering blueness darting forth

on half the heavens, and the forked thin fire

strikes to the sea: and hark, the sudden voice

that rushes through the trees before the storm,

and shuddering of the branches. Yet the sky

is blue against them still, and early stars

glimmer above the pine-tops; and the air

clings faint and motionless around me here.

Another burst of flame—and the black speck

shows in the glare, lashed onwards. It were well

I bade make ready for our guests to-night.