Authors: William Alexander Percy
To think nobility like mine could be
Flawed — shattered utterly — and by —
This, this the shame, O Zeus, that Thou must hear —
A slim, brown shepherd boy with windy eyes
And spring upon his mouth!
Mine Thou hast made the courage to face truth,
Tho’ truth were death; but face alone!
Before Thine eyes to strip my passion till
Naked its evil gleams — here — now — oh, all
The harsh and iron of my soul must forth
Ere shame’s rebellion in my blood be quelled,
And Thou familiar made with my reproach! …
Courage and truth, these two are not of earth!
Hearken Thou, Zeus, and judge if, at the last,
In spite of all, I am not half divine,
Loving these two.
It was the hour of fleeing stars —
If I should live to see a million dawns,
Each magic with a strange perfection of its own,
The memory of none could stir as that
The pool of tears and longing here within.
The hour of fleeing stars —
And I, too, fled into the stillness,
Up from the quiet village to the hills
Where walk the morning-mooded gods.
A dawn of dew and hyacinths,
With grey-eyed, silver-footed April loose
Upon the hills. The arching air — the last few stars —
Each little leaf, tho’ hushed, a-tremble to
The throbbing up of azure-hearted spring.
The upper meadows I had gained,
When on the eager silence came a sound,
A sleepy sound of many little feet.
Above the road I drew me up, and watched
The flock drift by. They passed, a huddled herd,
Shyly, and after them, with loitering foot
And bent, dark-curling head, the shepherd lad. —
Down, down, O heart of mine! — I feared to breathe
Lest breathing wake me from a dear enchantment;
I dared not move, lest moving stir the spell …
So leaned above the roadside — gazing —
Drinking the poison of his loveliness.
For he was lovelier than the youthful day;
More beautiful than silver, naked Ganymede!
Slowly he came beneath me on the road —
And suddenly I heard
The tremulous, soft magic give me speech.
“Shepherd, thy name!” He raised his head;
The wonder of his mouth and eyes and carven throat
Flooded me. And he smiled. So full
Of sweetness were those eyes, those curving lips,
A music as of tears swept through my veins;
And when his voice rose, answering,
As cool, unhurt, and clear it was
As is the bird-souled break of day.
“Phaon,” he said, and, smiling still, passed on. —
Thus, Zeus, at dawn, seeking as was my wont,
The viewless god’s companionship,
Phaon I met, himself in curve and color godlike,
And, meeting him, lost Thee!
When shining day aroused the earth and me,
I turned me from that roadside home, full-fledged
In Aphrodite. Not the gales of spring
Dashing the tenuous, frayed clouds high up the sky,
Were plumed with wilder rapture than my heart!
Nor was the earth’s red longing for fruition
More hot than mine for Phaon …
Oh, I had loved the colors of the world,
All lofty things, all daring enterprise,
The glint and foam of life’s adventuring!
That hour changed all the world and me!
Cool sleep became a haunted thing,
Full of the boy untruly amorous;
And waking, pain — a disillusionment
That filled the lonely day with thirst.
At dawn, at dusk, my feet sought out the hills
Beloved of shepherd folk, that, haply, sight of him
Might stay the burning here.
To glimpse his loveliness, to hear his voice
Answering lightly my light questionings
Was sweetness more than mortal thing,
More than the gods’ ambrosial dalliance —
And bitterness, my heart, and bitterness!
Oh, I grew studious in unlearning life,
Till I could feign simplicity,
And use the simple speech of shepherd folk.
My utmost intellect was bent to plan
Assurance of chance meetings;
My craft in beauty to devise which way
The yellow crocus in my hair might take his praise.
At feasts and country festivals,
When came the dark and stars, I, too, came, there
To see his bending body in the dance.
With not more grace, beneath the twilight breeze
Bending, the long-stemmed asphodel is swayed.
But always something of his grace,
His inextinguishable happiness,
Would seem to break my heart, and I would long to be
Freed from that loneliness men call esteem,
And there within the dance, a country wench,
Touching his shining arms, and breathing close
His lithe and burning youth.
O Thou hast known
The thousand years and each year’s thousand lovers —
What need to tell the pangs and tricks of clay
Common to all; yea, e’en at last to me, Thy child!
Father, it seemed not evil then — so sweet
He was; and I, who, most of all the world
Loved purity and loathèd lust,
Became the mark of mine own scorning ere
I knew — he was so sweet!
A something from the freshness of the woods,
Of cool and shining leaves, of laggard winds,
His beauty seemed to catch. I think
The momentary blood that lights the rose
Fired his veins with vintage of delight
Perpetually. No lovelier
The first strong tulip, whose crimson arrogance
Lords it above blythe Eresos, and daunts
The lesser darlings of pale April, than
His mouth … And this, a shepherd boy!
His thoughts the thoughts of shepherds; his desires,
The bread and water cravings of the poor.
No trembling from the madness of my songs
Could reach his heart; no lofty converse call
One cloud of questioning within
His strange, unshadowed, listening eyes.
His lore was of the leaves, the clouds, the winds,
What time the fields, a-frost with heliotrope,
Yield richer pasturage; what time,
The starrier meadows of wild broom.
This, this my lover! Mine, whose choice of mate
Was bidden guest in all the courts
And goodly palaces of Greece!
Lo, I, whose name was crowned thro’ all the isles
With praise and reverence,
Grew stranger to the life that had been mine;
Transmuted from the very certitude
Of right example to reproach; become
As vacillant, weak flame before the wind of lust.
Yet, not, O Father, stained with deed of wantonness.
I could not quite escape that holiness
The sacred years had bred!
Methinks, the shepherd boy will never know
But that one fragrant with a nobleness
He dimly felt, had found him for a space
In some strange wise companionable.
And at the last he loved me, Zeus! Oh, not
As lovers love — less than the shepherds’ strife
Of skill, less than the glowing dance,
Or merry gossip when the wine-vat teems.
This irony for only anodyne
Of all my pain Thou tenderest me —
Out of the evil of my passioning came good!
For Phaon, Phaon loved me as a goddess sent,
And, curbing grossness, looked to me for praise …
Perhaps his blood was clean of lust,
The mountains and the winds being pure,
Or else his years, maturing loveliness,
Left green that mortal taint.
O soft, soft lies, beguile me not!
Altho’ by me unroused,
No doubt his manhood’s proof will flaunt before
The red and white of some broad-bosomed wench
Of his own kind — when I am gone!
Oh, swiftly, swiftly, scorning shame,
Tell all, my heart, and make perpetual end …
Thou send’st to mortals night as comforter;
And when the rounded moon breathes up the east,
Dost think to ease our most immedicable griefs
With loveliness. But I am still
Weary and broken with the memory
Of such a night, vouchsafèd lately.
Lesbos, my own, lay drowned beneath
The warm and argent flood of light — so still,
The very olive trees unstirring slept
A silver sleep. But, ah, to me the night
Was terrible with perfumes from the hair
And breasts of Aphrodite; within my blood,
Unstaunchable, surged all the undertow of spring,
Dragging my soul unto the sea that knows no law.
Haggard and parched, love’s frenzy caught me up
And bore me from my dream-hot bed into the night.
My feet unconscious chose those pastures known
To love. The way was haunted with him; here
He stood; here leaned upon his crook to watch the dawn;
Here lifted up the wonder of his eyes.
And on the visioning leapt all the pity of
My life — vexing and hounding me.
About me, moonlight, stillness, empty night;
Distraught, I stumbled on.
A light, near footstep sounded suddenly;
I lifted filmy eyes; saw; reeled; and saw
Again — Phaon, the shepherd. Then madness broke.
His argent throat and arms,
His mouth, the dew, the tenderness — O God! —
I bent me to him with the flaming cry,
“Phaon — I love thee; one kiss, one kiss — Phaon!”
A silence came. The night grew huge and cold.
Silence. I lifted heavily,
A nightmare weight, my lids and looked upon the boy.
Amazement held him, wonder; quick
His eyes avoided mine, then, dubious, sought;
And in the miserable stillness there,
I watched the radiance leave his face,
And pain steal up like age. Within me died
All fire. I closed my eyes; the night whirled past.
Anguish like bolted lightning showed
In that long instant what myself had been to him —
One alien to the lowness of his life;
Almost a holy thing, a-stir with God,
That now revealèd stood of common grossness.
As dreadful as their lovelessness,
The scorning that I knew his eyes would show!
Tho’ never loved, yet never to be loathed —
That mean respect at least my pride might save!
I woke, beheld the desperate urgency,
And faced him with a lie that heaven sent.
“O shepherd, I leave Lesbos, home, and thee
At dawn. Good-bye.” Then hid from him my face,
And bowed before the surge of agony.
I needed not to see his joyous tenderness
Pulse back; I knew, how bitterly!
Before him, broken, cold, and blind, I felt
Him take me in his arms, all gentleness,
And on my mouth lay his, a long, long kiss.
The music of his voice was far away;
“Come soon again to Lesbos and the shepherds here
Who love thee” …
Thus,
As I had prayed, I lay upon his breast,
And in his cloudy glamour was wrapped close,
And breathed the fragrance of his neck and hair —
Yet not as I had prayed. Midmost
The snatch of starved, impossible delight —
His lips to mine — the reeling moonlight — passion —
I knew the irony, the tragic mockery.
While yet I clung to him, he seemed
Almost a child, sweet as a child is sweet,
Unsparingly; and I —
Old — in the world and sin and vision, old;
He but a shepherd boy; and I — Sappho!
So when he had released me from his arms,
Stricken and blind, with one swift kiss
Upon his brow, one sobbed “Good-bye,” I turned;
So, fleeing, down into the darkness.