246 Mythology poems

Force of reason, who shut up the shrill foul Furies in the dungeon of the Parthenon, led whimpering to the cave they live in still, beneath the rock your city foundered on: who, equivocating, taught revenge to sing (or seem to, or be about to) a kindlier tune: mind that can make a scheme of anything— a game, a grid, a system, a mere folder in the universal file drawer: uncompromising mediatrix, virgin married to the welfare of the body politic: deific contradiction, warbonnet-wearing olive-bearer, author of the law’s delays, you who as talisman and totem still wear the aegis, baleful with Medusa’s scowl (though shrunken and self-mummified, a Gorgon still): cool guarantor of the averted look, the guide of Perseus, who killed and could not kill the thing he’d hounded to its source, the dread thing-in-itself none can elude, whose counter- feit we halfway hanker for: aware (gone mad with clarity) we have invented all you stand for, though we despise the artifice—a space to savor horror, to pre-enact our own undoing in— living, we stare into the mirror of the Gorgon.

Angelfish perturb the area around pink gauze, are the details of a threaded diamond string and its fake catachrestic applause. Like that of the angelheaded beast spreading its wings, as if to swim under the light of the glowworm and hyacinth, the fish are oratory and not. The pulchritude of bombazine on a shattering geoidal mid-afternoon, dribbling from sea rock to splint, the wing tips are hardly bleak accoutrements, their own swinging by the bay of a chest and a previous rock. Here we are stranded, pelagic with clot, and the fish burble with oratory and I kind of like them a lot.

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts, Thick breaks the red flame; All Etna heaves fiercely Her forest-clothed frame. Not here, O Apollo! Are haunts meet for thee. But, where Helicon breaks down In cliff to the sea, Where the moon-silver'd inlets Send far their light voice Up the still vale of Thisbe, O speed, and rejoice! On the sward at the cliff-top Lie strewn the white flocks, On the cliff-side the pigeons Roost deep in the rocks. In the moonlight the shepherds, Soft lull'd by the rills, Lie wrapped in their blankets Asleep on the hills. —What forms are these coming So white through the gloom? What garments out-glistening The gold-flower'd broom? What sweet-breathing presence Out-perfumes the thyme? What voices enrapture The night's balmy prime? 'Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, the Nine. —The leader is fairest, But all are divine. They are lost in the hollows! They stream up again! What seeks on this mountain The glorified train?— They bathe on this mountain, In the spring by their road; Then on to Olympus, Their endless abode. —Whose proase do they mention? Of what is it told?— What will be for ever; What was from of old. First hymn they the Father Of all things; and then, The rest of immortals, The action of men. The day in his hotness, The strife with the palm; The night in her silence, The stars in their calm.

Pushed prow southerly into the golden wind: hurt the eyes: gold pelted water: so looked less far away: plovers huddling on the tide's last piece of shore: Rise up in brightness: clap wings:: I told myself I'll go where eagles go: if to brimstone: my wake a narrow river back to its source in cedar: and when sunlight embers the shore's soft fleece will be before me.

As he spoke we could hear, ever more loudly, the noise Of the burning fires; the flood of flames was coming Nearer and nearer. “My father, let me take you Upon my shoulders and carry you with me. The burden will be easy. Whatever happens, You and I will experience it together, Peril or safety, whichever it will be. Little Iülus will come along beside me. My wife will follow behind us. And you, my servants, Listen to what I say: just as you leave The limits of the city there is a mound, And the vestiges of a deserted temple of Ceres, And a cypress tree that has been preserved alive For many years by the piety of our fathers. We will all meet there, though perhaps by different ways And, Father, you must carry in your arms The holy images of our household gods; I, coming so late from the fighting and the carnage Cannot presume to touch them until I have washed Myself in running water.” Thus I spoke. I take up the tawny pelt of a lion and Cover my neck and my broad shoulders with it, And bowing down, I accept the weight of my father; Iülus puts his hand in mine and goes Along beside me, trying to match my steps As best he can, trying his best to keep up. My wife follows behind us, a little way back. So we all set out together, making our way Among the shadows, and I, who only just A little while ago had faced, undaunted, Showers of arrows and swarms of enemy Greeks, Am frightened by every slightest change in the air And startled by every slightest sound I hear, Fearful for whom I walk with and whom I carry. And just as I had almost come to the gates And thought that I had almost gotten us free, I thought I heard the sound of many feet, And my father, peering intently into the shadows, Cries out to me, “Get away, get away, my son, My son, they are coming! I see their shining shields, I see the glow of their weapons in the dark!” I am alarmed, and I don’t know what happened But some power hostile to me distracts my wits And I am confused, and I lead us away by ways That I don’t know, and off the familiar streets That together we are following, and so, O God! some fate has taken away my wife, Creüsa, my wife, away from me. What happened? Did she wander from the way that we were going? Did she fall back, having to rest some place Back there, and so we left her? I did not know. I never saw her again, and as we went, I never turned to look behind, and never Thought of her until we reached the mound And Ceres’ ancient place. When all of us, At last, had gotten there, we all were there, But she had vanished and she wasn’t there. Gone from her people, gone from her child, and her husband. What men or gods in my frenzy did I not Cry out against? What worse sight had I seen? I left Ascanius and Anchises and The household gods in the care of my companions And I found a secluded place deep in a valley For them to hide, and I myself took up My shining weapons and sought the city again, Determined, no matter what, to look for my Creüsa everywhere in Troy. I find My way along the walls and to, and through, The shadowed gate I’d left the city by; Carefully, step by unseen step, in the dark, Backwards the way I came I make my way; Everywhere as I go fills me with terror; The very silence around me fills me with terror. I make my way to my home in case, in case, She’s gone back there. The Greeks had invaded the house And set it on fire, and through the house the fire Rolled up on the surge of the wind to the very roof, And the flames tower high above the burning house And the heat of the burning pours up into the sky. And so I go on, and once again I see The palace of Priam, and the citadel, And in the empty courtyard of Juno’s shrine There’s Phoenix and dire Ulysses, guarding the treasures Taken from everywhere from the shrines that the Greeks Had set fire to; the golden bowls, the holy Altar-tables, the stolen holy vestments; Boys and trembling matrons stand around . . . I wander in the streets, in my desperation Calling out her name, Creüsa, Creüsa, Calling Creüsa, over and over again. And as I went among the ruined buildings And through the streets of the ruined city, lo, Suddenly there rose before my eyes The strangely magnified image of my wife. I was stupefied; my hair stood on end; my voice Got caught in my throat. Then she spoke to me and said Words that altered everything for me: “Beloved husband, what use is it for you To persist in this insanity of grief. What has happened here has happened not without The will of the gods. The high lord of Olympus Does not permit Creüsa to go with you To be with you on your journey where you are going. Long exile will be yours, ploughing across Vast seas until you come to Hesperia, Where Lydian Tiber gently flows between Rich husbanded fields and where you will be happy, A king, and wedded to a royal wife. Give up your weeping now for your Creüsa; I, a Dardan woman and the spouse Of divine Venus’s son, will never see The scornful households of the Myrmidons Or the Dolopians, and never have to be A scullion slave in service to some Greek matron. The Mighty Mother keeps me on these shores. Farewell and may your care protect and cherish Your child and mine.” And having spoken thus, The image of her receded into air, Leaving me weeping, with so much still to say. Three times I tried to embrace her and to hold her; Three times the image, clasped in vain, escaped As if it were a breeze or on the wings Of a vanishing dream. And so, the night being over, I returned to my companions where they were. When I got there I was amazed to see How many others, women and men, had come, Wretched survivors of the fall of the city, To join us in the exile and the journey, A heartbreaking company, come from everywhere, Ready in their hearts and with their fortunes, To follow me wherever I was going. And now the morning star was rising over The highest ridges of Ida, bringing in The day that was beginning; the Danaans held The city behind the gates that they had locked. There was no hope of further help. And so I acknowledged this, and taking up the burden Of my father once again, I sought the hills.

The hounds, you know them all by name. You fostered them from purblind whelps At their dam’s teats, and you have come To know the music of their yelps: High-strung Anthee, the brindled bitch, The blue-tick coated Philomel, And freckled Chloe, who would fetch A pretty price if you would sell— All fleet of foot, and swift to scent, Inexorable once on the track, Like angry words you might have meant, But do not mean, and can’t take back. There was a time when you would brag How they would bay and rend apart The hopeless belling from a stag. You falter now for the foundered hart. Desires you nursed of a winter night— Did you know then why you bred them— Whose needling milk-teeth used to bite The master’s hand that leashed and fed them?