Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MY LEGENDS: ORPHEUS CHARMING THE ANIMALS, by PAUL FORT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MY LEGENDS: ORPHEUS CHARMING THE ANIMALS, by                    
First Line: Neath dawn's caress a silvery mountain shone
Last Line: That drunk with song the world more swiftly whirled through space.
Subject(s): Animals; Legends; Mythology - Classical; Orpheus; Singing & Singers; Songs


'Neath dawn's caress a silvery mountain shone.

And this was, on every hand, like a full surgeless sea whose ebb unveils the
gleam of some far-sunken hoard, when penetrating dawn tanned with its pallid
beam the sward of dewy glades deep in the sleeping wood.

On the silvered mountain at daybreak, Orpheus sang.

And this was, on every hand, beneath the murmurous leaves the wakened forest
merged in one concerted theme by many voices urged, harsh from the trail's dark
edge, clear from the crests and the sedge of many a woodland stream.

The lion's voice towards the lyre of Orpheus rose.

It was he who came, at dawn suddenly to appear! Growling, 'twas he who came. . .
. And the singer was erect before the flaming dawn, erect before the ravening
beast of prey, clasping the glittering lyre between his hands, comely and free
from fear.

Flattened against the rocks, the lion listened.

The mingled voices of the man and lyre, cadenced the mounting hour, rhythmed the
skies on fire. The lion came with humble tongue to lick the sandaled feet
sublime of him whose soaring song, farflung, seemed like the golden voice of
Time.

All came to hear that voice and all were charmed.

The tiger stretched himself, long as a tenuous shrub, and savored those sweet
sounds as shrub soft breezes cool. The ourang-outang, bemused, his brow upon his
club, unchecked from nose and throat discharged a silver drool.

Great numbers of them came and all were charmed.

Like a crumbling crag, with shambling shock that cadenced broad hill-sides, the
great bear danced. On a dawn-red rock's outstanding jag, like a lyre that is
clasped in the hand of a man, like a lyre that is strung with sable cords, a
youthful zebra reared and pranced.

They came in multitudes and all were charmed.

The elephant, all ears, allowed the morning breeze to swell his massive sail. He
went as in a dream, and softly as a ship upon a sleeping stream. -- The peacock
with the notes unfurled or reefed his tail.

The proud beasts came, the timid beasts as well.

Half-fainting, the gazelle seemed lost to sight and sound, yet from her liquid
eyes most happy tear-drops fell imaging forth her dream 'mid music's spell
profound, the lovely, tender, mild and amorous gazelle.

They came from jungles far, from forests near at hand, from the plateau's rich
grass and from Sahara's sand.

Buffalo, aurochs, ram, and fabled unicorn pressed in their zest for song huge
horn against huge horn. The gilded marmoset whose thirst an orange staunches,
the rhythmic strain rehearsed with gently swaying haunches.

They came from the Orient, they came from the Occident. They came from
everywhere -- they even came from heaven.

Chaplets of blissful doves on eagles' necks aswoon, bright zones of lustrous
bees with dark drones overlaid, the swallows' twittering cavalcade, that
transcendent tune had heard. And that nightmare with great eyes astare, the
prowling owl, had left his lair to follow the irridescent flight of an unreal
humming bird.

The humus and the sand had their ambassadors.

The spider and the crab, wise as Confucius, with little vitreous eyes their
rival virtues scanned. Locked in a close embrace two boas made in space (a
sunbeam being at hand) a giant caduceus.

The stout beasts came, likewise the slender ones.

O the air of the fair giraffe, that gracious, glorious air! Rapt, with veiled
eyes it listened, gazing on high where glistened dawn's earliest blush that
flushed a fleecy cloud. It made the penguin swear, one foot in air, that ne'er
in all his life had he seen a mien so sweetly proud.

Showers of rosy spurge watered the velvet wind.

The beauty of the slug in scarlet freshness showed, the shivering lizard shed an
opalescent gleam, in the bright morning light a frog beside them glowed and with
this triple beam a rock was diamonded.

Through the blue air they came, they came from out the stones.

In the pure firmament music had mobilized the flies, afar the wasp's shrill
trump hurled forth its resonant blast. And over all the world a gentle murmur
passed as though the Day of Wrath were done in miniature.

They came from everywhere -- from the bowels of the deep.

The whale himself had come, His Majesty the Whale, from the Mediterranean, his
bulk borne like a bale by a bank of herrings, piscatory ocean freighters, that
frisk before a horde of glutton alligators.

They were resuscitated from depths of legend.

The Roc its black wings spread from the gold egg of the sun, dusking blue depths
of air with slow-expanding pinions. And, risen from Hell's dominions, one saw, a
portent dread, in the lurid Pit's red glare the ghost of Leviathan.

They came from Stygian gulfs, they came from shining stars, from everywhere,
from lairs unknown to even the gods.

But the lion suddenly growled and Orpheus ceased his song. They had seen in the
shadowy path that crossed a sylvan dale, a shepherd with his flock, his
shepherd-dog, his horse. Songs that bewitched the brutes for these were void of
force. No sounds divine availed with ears by commerce dulled.

Orpheus dropped his lyre -- and the lyre wept.

But straightway one perceived the land's whole wealth of bloom, slower to yield
itself to the singer's magic strains, surge o'er the plains, ascend, and, where
the bare crests loom, spread 'neath the dawn's first glows its fresh, eternal
snows.

All lyreless, Orpheus sang the beauty of the flowers, and the enraptured blooms,
enthralled by that sweet song, forsook their parent bough, vibrating
butterflies, soon to recrystallise, bright stars about his brow.

Orpheus grasped his lyre again, and the gray rocks wept at his glad refrain,
jetting the fountains of their joys to greet the accents of his voice.

Then, prodigy divine, one saw the horizon dim sway with the music's spell its
floating, misty hem, with each melodious swell uncovering its mountains and when
the silence fell again re-covering them.

Orpheus sang this day, he sang the sun! And the heavens listened, all their
clouds in leash. And the charmed lightning slept beneath its storm.

But violently the night on Orpheus having closed, the trees, the birds, the
mists revealed, with headlong pace and oscillating flight, unwontedly imposed,
that drunk with song the world more swiftly whirled through space.





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