THESEUS AND HIPPOLYTA TO J. G. FAIRFAX

Noon smote down on the field,

Burning on spears and helms,

Shining from Theseus’ shield.

As a wave of the sea that whelms

A rock, and its crest uprears,

Through the wreck of the trampled wheat

The charge of the charioteers

Thundering broke. A sleet

Veiled light, and the air was alive,

As with hissing of snakes, as with swarms

Of the Spring by a populous hive,

As with wind, and the clamour of storms:

So hurtled the arrowy hail

Loosed from the Amazon ranks,

Smote ringing on brazen mail,

Struck fanged through the shuddering flanks

Of the stallions; and half were hurled

In the dust, and broken, and brayed

By the chariots over them whirled,

Which, eager and undismayed,

Swept ruining on to the hordes

Of the Amazonian camp,

With the lightning of terrible swords;

Till the dead were heaped, as a ramp

For the quick. But the chariots shocked

On the thicket of close-set spears;

And the long ranks reeled, and rocked,

Broke; and the charioteers

Went through them, cleaving as ploughs

Cleave earth: they were rent, and tossed

With the tumult of tortured boughs.

And the stallions, with foam embossed,

Fought, tearing each other with teeth,

In the red, blind rage of their lust,

Screaming; and writhed underneath

The wounded, trodden as must

Of the grapes trodden out in the press,

Empurpling the knees, and bare

Thighs of the men. Through the stress

Of their shoulders drove as a share,

Hippolyta. Avenging she came;

And they streamed, and they surged round her car,

The women: her face was a flame

As she rode through the tempest of war;

And they cried, made glad with the sight,

As those desiring the dawn,

When the darkness is cloven by light,

Cry for gladness: they rallied, upborne,

When she rayed as the sun through their cloud.

But she strung the bow, and she prayed

Unto Artemis, calling aloud,

As a maid might call to a maid;

And the Goddess of shining brows

Heard, as she paused from the chace

Upon Tainaros hoary with snows;

And a shadow darkened her face:

A shadow, and then a ray

Lightening, glorying, smiled,

As her thought pierced years to a day

Unborn, and an unborn child,

With the pure fount of his praise

Lifted to her, from the shrine

Rock-hewn, at the three cross-ways

In a waste of hills, as wine

Gladdening her; and she shed

A wonder, a terror, a fear,

A beauty that filled with dread,

A glory no eyes might bear

On her maid; stooped, hushed, from the height

Her thought, as a bird on the wing,

Rained down from her, swifter than light.

Hippolyta notched on the string

An arrow, and loosed it, and smote,

As he drove at her car with a jest,

Agelaus, cleaving his throat

Speechless; and smote through the breast

Polytherses; and Euenor then

Felt the teeth of the flints at his veins,

As his mares dragged him back to his men

All bloody, entangled in reins;

Then Damastor she smote: and they fled

As doves or as linnets fly

When a hawk that has towered overhead

Stoops, ravening, out of the sky

On their quires. But her arrows sighed

After them, swifter than feet:

They ran, shrieked, stumbled, and died,

Shot through with her shafts. In the wheat,

With the sunlight gilding their greaves,

Helmets, and shields, and mail,

They lay, strewn thickly as leaves

When Autumn has swung his flail.

But afar, where Thermodon rolled

The deep, swift strength of its flood

To the ocean turbidly gold,

Drave Theseus, eager for blood;

And as herds stampede in affright

At the reek of the beast in the air

Precipitately through the night

When a lion forth comes from his lair,

So the women before him fled

In a rout, headlong, overborne,

For he drave as a beast all red,

With the blood of the prey he had torn,

Circled them round; they were rent,

Whirled under him, flung from him, far

Seaward, and lost; until spent,

Heaped in a mound by her car

Broken, and dying, and dead,

Hippolyta saw. And she fled.

Theseus followed. Afar,

Over the storm of the spears,

He had seen her face as a star

Shine; and no tremble of tears

Softened her terrible eyes,

Cruel they shone there, and blue

With the beauty of windless skies.

But her bowstring ever she drew,

Loosening arrows that sang

Through the air exulting as wind;

And the clamour of battle rang

Most by her car, while behind

The fierce, wild women upheld

Their queen, and their anger burned

In staring eyeballs. She felled

A man as her car overturned,

Sped onward, her swift white feet

The dead and the dying spurned

Who lay in the wasted wheat.

Theseus followed his prey

As a lean hound follows the fleet

Quarry: the dusty way

Smoked with the speed of his feet.

She was swift; but he burned in the chace:

He was flame, he was sandalled with fire,

Hungering after her face,

With a fury, a lust, a desire,

As a hound that whines for the blood

Of the hart flying winged with fear;

And she yearned, and she longed for the wood,

Seeming far from her still, though near,

And she strained, and she panted, and pressed,

With her head flung backward for breath,

And the quick sobs shaking her breast,

Agonised, now, as by death,

Fearing utterly, fighting with fate,

Stumbling. And swifter behind,

With a love made hot by his hate,

Strained he pursuing. The wind,

Lifted, and played with the fold

Of her chlamys; and showed made bare

The swift limbs shining, as gold

From sunlight, and streamed through her hair

As wind in a cresset of fire,

As tresses of flame in the night,

While she fled, desired, from desire,

Till the brakes hid the flame from his sight.

Yea, but no long time he stood,

As one who resigns the prize

When a moment baffled. The wood

Hid her indeed from his eyes,

But the track of her feet lay clean

As the slot of a deer in the grass.

Slower he followed, and keen

Were his downcast eyes. As a glass

A wide lake gleamed in the ebb

Of the latest tide of the light;

Stars shone clear through the web

Of the branches, beckoning night;

The leaves fell softly, gilt

With autumn, and tawny and red;

And the blue of the skies lay spilt,

Pooled, shining, from late rains shed;

The tall reeds seemed to dream

By the full lake's murmuring marge.

She paused by a chiming stream,

Listened awhile, hung her targe

From a tree with her unstrung bow,

Loosened her breast-plate and greaves,

Bathing her limbs: and slow,

Like a snake through the fallen leaves,

Theseus crept on his prize,

Paused, to gaze on her grace,

The fine clean curve of the thighs,

Pure brow, and well-chiselled face,

Beautiful knees, and the play

Of muscles, splendidly wrought.

Theseus leapt on his prey.

Laughing softly, he sought

Ease from desire as a flame:

Struggled she still, and fought,

Calling on Artemis’ name,

Who went, unheeding her prayer,

Beyond Tainaros streaming with floods,

Till the cries came faint through the air,

Dwindling among the woods,

For the numberless tongues of the leaves

Echoed with myriad cries

Low, and as plaintive as grieves

The wood under darkening skies.

The quick, sharp sobs from her breast

Came thick, and she, to whom spears

Hurtling close were a zest

To battle, felt the hot tears

Well and fall from her eyes,

Struggled not long, lay still.

Theseus stooped on his prize,

Drank of her lips his fill.