Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WHITE FEET OF ATTHIS, by HENRY ANDERSON LAFLER


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WHITE FEET OF ATTHIS, by                    
First Line: Then atthis to her lover-poet said
Last Line: Her cold, sweet finger-tips.
Subject(s): Feet; Man-woman Relationships; Poetry & Poets; Male-female Relations


THEN Atthis to her lover-poet said:
"Why dost thou never murmur of my feet
A little song and sweet?
For surely they are worth a fragile rhyme
To cast in the teeth of Time."

From that imperious countenance, behold,
He looked along the dais stained with gold
Where bright her silver garments gleamed and, lo!
A little drift of snow
Was newly fallen there,
Nor fled in the dim air.

Gazing, a mist about his eyelids fell;
As strokes of a loud bell
His heart beat: loveliness
Surged in his brain and did his soul possess,
And earth's white shapes, a cavalcade of dreams,
Hurried their phantom-streams;
Yet came no vision out of lands or seas
So perfect-fair as these—
So white, so slight, so pale, so frail, so sweet
Were her unsandaled feet.

Ah, grievèd was his heart
That ever in mead or mart
Aught carved so fragilely and slender-round
Should tread the dark, cold ground.

"Such white hath not the curds
Drawn of the dreamy herds,
Nor white breasts of white birds,
Nor marble women folded in their stone,
Still, sunless, and unknown.

"White of a moonlit garden of pale roses,
And blossomy orchard-closes,
Or shroud that wreathes a girl's virginity—
Her cold inviolacy—
Or viewless foam of far, enchanted seas—
Nay, not any of these
Is whiter—"
Suddenly,
With petulant bright mouth a-question, she
Shattered to air that weaving reverie

"Tak'st thou so long to see that they are fair,
So mute thou standest there?
A song I'd have to quell the singing birds,
Of soft and colored words,
All woven together in a gleaming rhyme—
Seven silver bells a-chime
To ring and murmur in all maidens' ears
Through the unceasing years:
Her feet were smallest, fairest. They must be
Forever hating me."

Then he from all his dreams awakenèd,
His grave eyes lifted, said:
"O Beautiful, mine all-allegiance
Bowed to the emerald shadows of thy glance,
And thine unconquered mouth
(A scarlet poppy out of the warm South),
And till thou bad'st them see
Mine eyes knew not so far a falsity
Unto thy face, O Sweet,
As one small, fleeting glance unto thy feet!"

Thereat she laughed in her high queenly mood,
And said: "Thy words are of thy poethood,
And wilt thou bring some slight immortal rhyme
In morrow's morning-time?"

He leaned, and Atthis yielded to his lips
Her cold, sweet finger-tips.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net