MORPHEUS by PAUL FORT

Through lyric summers gay, when sunlight floods the air, while lush and verdant
grass makes all the world more fair, swift gods and agile nymphs, in lovely
multitude, speed o'er the plains, by the swarm of their golden hair pursued.

On their shoulders, azure drones of snoring ease partake. The ladybirds clasp
flowers about their calves and thighs. At the rosy breasts of nymphs great
yellow butterflies palpitate; and their heels trail scarabs in their wake.

Poised on the flank of hills, where silver sunlight pours, brown oreads emerge
from temples white and small. Dryads, the light of groves, come trooping, one
and all, slipping their naked forms through blue, arboreal doors.

With May and roses crowned, or rushes from the weir, to the tawny arms of fauns
the nymphs their waists resign. "Raise like a dawn your arms through the
troubled atmosphere, Eunice, Aeglea, Nais, Eione, Proserpine."

Beneath the wheat unveil your suppleness, Phrixa! Pan follows you, both horns
burning with solar fire. The frou-frou of your course through murmurous grass,
Phrixa, has wakened in his heart full many a fell desire.

And thou, Pan, lithe and dark, fleet god, in mid-pursuit, bend down, on the
bluets snuff the print of a lovely foot, pluck at a heel, entire the vermeil
blossom pull. Thanks to your heat the wheat unfolds in baskets-full.

Sudden, what frantic nymphs seek the horizon's rim, what sprites dissolved in
dew back to their fountains flee! Lo, Morpheus comes, thick-veiled in shadowy
gauzes dim. Each dryad, terror-struck, takes refuge in her tree.

Swiftly the scrambling fauns attain the craggy height. Like will-o'-the wisps
their horns efface each shining speck. Morpheus, god of shades, comes from the
dawn in flight. The hot fist of the sun brandished above his neck.

With summer's heady tufts his nostrils over-full, he staggers, Morpheus, the god
with feet of wool! Drunken with heated air himself the god assails, rending,
with out-stretched arm, his dimly shimmering veils.

In softest shade the grass his drowsy form doth fold. He sprawls along the grass
regarding stainless skies. Zenithed Apollo plumbs the pupils of his eyes. He
falls. His aqueous eyes smoke under lids of gold.

Still Morpheus, proud-necked, defies the sunlight's force, and towards that orb,
whose fires with frenzied poppies swarm, upheaves a streaming breast where
silver planets course. . . . Infinite azure, now, is mirrored in his form.

But soon, his ruddy hair, alluring many a bee, a bed of murmur soothes his
flaming countenance. Swollen with veins, his fists relax upon his paunch. And on
warm turf I hear a snoring deity.

But hark! With sounding horn Diana is awake! High o'er the forest's verge she
calls her greyhounds fleet, the color of the moon, in many a dim retreat scaring
the stags deep-couched in berry-scented brake.

From summer nights the god doth greatest pomp derive. Morpheus mounts superb
amid fresh verdure's scent. Shaking his locks, with bees he fills the firmament.
And stars in myriads buzz beneath the heaven's blue hive.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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