Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PERSEPHONEIA; A FRAGMENT: PROLOGUE, by WILLIAM SHARP Poet's Biography First Line: The old dull whisper of the unceasing wave Last Line: Dread, half in expectation. Alternate Author Name(s): Macleod, Fiona Subject(s): Demeter; Mythology - Classical; Persephone; Plays & Playwrights; Ceres; Proserpine; Proserpina | ||||||||
An ancient solitary temple of Persephoneia by the sea. A dull sunset, burning slowly over Hybla. Melkos, an old blind priest, attended by a boy. A brazen glow rests on Etna, whence issues a thin column of dusky smoke filled at times with a tongue of red flame. MELKOS The old dull whisper of the unceasing wave. [Sighing.] The slow sound of the unceasing wave. [Displaces a stone with his foot. Out of these shadowy hollows of the ocean Troop the grey dreams that plague the minds of men. Far off Hadranos hears: Enkelados Puts forth his hands and shapes the sound to thought: And on her lonely Mount where the sunset burns Hybla remoulds in pale invisible flame. [The boy idly plays a note or two. I am too old to fear these Holy Ones. Hybla Beneficent, why should one fear The Twilight Goddess, born where the Evening star Hangs o'er the abyss where swims the unrisen moon. Hadranos loves us not, but hates us not: Though dreadful to men's ears the baying of the hounds That night and day, a thousandfold, engird His sacred temple with a surge of sound. Rather the man I fear, the Titan-slave, Who hates the sovran powers who hold him thrall, And hugs a secret that no god doth know, Save only her, Demeter, when the frenzy Terribly moves her calm to dreadful storm -- And him, Poseidon, when in his shell-strewn sleep Deep in the dim green silences he moans Remembering . . . him rather do I fear, Enkelados, the Helot of the Gods. [The boy half raises himself, looks toward the ancient temple. MELKOS Why do you stir, Neanthes? Does the light From off Hyblaean hill draw near the roof? NEANTHES The she-goat browsing 'mid the yellow spurge Yonder, where the lava crouches like a lizard Nailed to a thorn, looked suddenly up and whinnied, Her ears swung like figs in the wind, and her knees Bent, and she shrank shivering to the ground. [He sinks again, and plays a few notes on his reed pipe. MELKOS That slow sound of the unceasing wave. For ages These watery fangs have gnawed and torn the shore. [Again displace; a stone with his foot. When I was young I sailed three days and nights, Southward three days when the great God drowned in fire, Southward three nights when lost amid pale stars The half-moon waned, and never land I saw, Nor living thing, save a shadow in the calms Where overhead a white-winged sea-hawk flew. And on the morrow of the fourth I heard The stifled laughters of a hidden folk, Hoarse murmurings, a dull tumultuous haste, With sad sea-voices full of lamentation, And a single voice that knew not any peace. NEANTHES [Listlessly, without looking up. Who were these creatures of the salt south sea? MELKOS Out of the depths they came, I know not whence, Or what. Poseidon's offspring, they, who made A green and dreadful rumour through the wave. NEANTHES [Singing. Fair is the falling wave, and fair The paven green sea-halls, And one who sleepeth sound is sleeping there. MELKOS And as in some old dream that swims unsought Into the unwilling mind, I know once more The old fear I felt, and all the horror of fear, When out of the foam and the seas and the wind I heard a voice of vengeance and of wrath And heard Poseidon calling on the shade Of that most sacred, dread, and nameless god Who lives below the root of ancient slime Left by forgotten seas and the most deepset fires Enkelados hath watched, Hadranos seen, Leaning o'er midnight chasms fill'd with flame. Loudly he called, and billow on billow leapt; Louder, and seas rose, and fell upon seas; Loudlier, till the shaken watery domes That moved as a falling city on Etna moves, Crag-slipt to gulfs of fathomless abyss, I saw far-off steadfast stars involved, Spun round like dust about a chariot wheel. And all the anguish of his cry was filled With one name only -- hers, whom he begat A thousand thousand years ago, on her The stern implacable guardian of mankind Demeter-Erinnys, on whose name be peace. That name alone I heard . . . Persephoneia. [NEANTHES again raises himself, looking towards the ancient temple. Does the light fall from off the Hyblaean hill, Neanthes? NEANTHES Three sea-birds dripping from the foam Wheeled inland, yonder where the spotted snake Has made her lair under the asphodels, And one by one withered in fright, and flung Heavily downward, and all three lie dead. MELKOS [Again to himself, unheeding the boy. And when like a snowflake blindly up-whirled and borne My frail boat sung from one gulf to another, And I lay breathless, dead, as one long dead, Blind, deaf, dumb, senseless, without hope or fear, Who ploughed the furrow of my flying keel? That thing I do not know, nor how I escaped A peril more dire than that which waits for ships For Cumae bound when Zankle sinks behind. But on one desolate morrow my grey lips Knew rain, and all my weary flesh was healed With warmth and peace, at the coming of a calm Leaning from heaven on the lapping waters, And from the violet hollows heavenward risen. And that day, in the hush of afternoon, I heard a shoreward sighing of the sea And in my nostrils was the blessed smell Of grass and earth and trees: so lifting me, And having made my prayer of thankfulness To him, the lord Poseidon of the Deep, I looked . . . and saw a melancholy shore, A long low lifeless melancholy shore, Wherefrom, an infinite way, the world uprose, Leaning gigantic . . . the vast womb of her. The Mother Mountain, and, purpling in the west, Hybla I saw, the Holy Hill: and else, No single home wherefrom the blue smoke toiled. But this I saw with dread, that ancient homes Hearthless and faded stood among grey trees, And a gaunt bridge hung broken o'er the bed Of a great river where no water ran, And old-time gardens all unwall'd, unkempt, Were green with noisome growth, and fruitless, drear. Some fallen columns lay upon the sand Whereon the lizards fled, and in one place I saw the image of an unknown God Within whose cavernous ruin the adder curled. Near by, erect, unshaken, stood a fane Even that by which this solitary eve I stand in these my blind and listless years -- Fearing so little, with so little hope, Yet dimly seeing in the far-off law The shaping of divine perfected things. Most drear and solitary it rose thereby, The columns held the vast grey slab of roof That still they hold, in whose wind-haunted places The sea-crows built, with melancholy cries Lifting black wings at sundown and at dawn. But on that dayset, from the midmost rose A thin and wavering column of spiced smoke Such as from altars rise, fragrant with gums, With wine and frankincense, where gods are known; And even as I watched, the purple bloom That Hybla wore, as a priestess wears a robe, So that the woman and the robe are one, Took fire: or rather, far below, a sea of flame Swung from its ebb, and with a mighty sigh From dim abysms reached a fiery crest, The conflagration of whose soundless life Changed Hybla to a molten brazen mass. Therefrom a concentrated stream of light Poured near the desolate fane; but as the God Sank sighing to the underworld his hand Lingered a brief while here: and the pale smoke Spired suddenly like the crimson breath of roses. [The boy again raises himself, looking towards the ancient temple. Does the light fall from off the Hyblaean hill, Neanthes? NEANTHES A little breath of smoke Rose from the broken terrace near the fane, No more than from the white ox idly breathes When with wet lips he tastes the morning grass. MELKOS And then? NEANTHES A sudden noisy whirl of sparrows Scattered like leaves around the seaward columns: And even as I looked, like leaves they fluttered, Falling and fallen, and now strewn deep they lie. MELKOS [Turning his face seaward again. And even as the curling breath of roses Wavered again to pale aerial smoke, Even in that moment I beheld a woman Standing in silence on the ruin'd terrace That downward reaches to the lifting wave Oozy with slimy frondage of the sea. So tall she was, so noble of mien, so great In the perfected beauty of repose, That for a moment all my thoughts beheld A flawless statue simulating life. Most pale, most terrible her awful face. The dark hair lay adown it in great clusters, Like to the wild vine on the ashy cliff That on AEtnean Inessa bears the grape Wherefrom the grey priests of Demeter brew A fatal juice. The sadness of the hills Crowned the sheer lonely height that was her forehead. The immemorial whisper of the sea Inhabited the silence of her face: And in the flamelit darkness of her eyes The melancholy of forgotten things Was like a rainy dusk in the inlands drear. In stillness she stood there, immovable, As Twilight stands in the passes of the hills When the Noon lifts her blazing wing and sheers Behind the incurring, blank, precipitous walls. Then well I knew a goddess I beheld. A VOICE O bitter and terrible love of the wave for the wind, Of the north for the flame, And the love and the joy and the glory half left behind For the mockery of a name. MELKOS What words were these: what bitter song from the sea, Out of the hills, or lifted from the slain? NEANTHES Only the wind I heard, and a sigh from the sea. It is gone now, and the far-off sea is still. MELKOS [Again turning his face to the sea. Then I knew a goddess I beheld. [A pause. But sad she was, more sad than I had dreamed The high immortal ones could ever be. And while I looked I saw that in one hand A cluster of flowers she held, anemones Wine-dark in hue, the sunbright celandine And poppies heavy in a downward flame, With pale green blossoms of the yellow spurge. But even as I looked a withering came Like a grey bloom upon them, and that bloom Dusked into ash, and in grey ash they fell Making an eddy of dust before her feet. Then a wild dove with sudden clamorous wing Batted the still air of the dreadful peace; Circling about her, come I know not whence; But even as I looked the grey wing sank And as a falling dust the cushat fell. [A pause. Then all my soul rose up in me, and knew Persephoneia. [A pause. And at that dreadful name, Born on my lips as dawn on a moving wave, The dark gulfs of her dreadful beautiful eyes Turned slowly upon mine, wherefrom the light, Ebbed, as the withdrawing gleam ebbs from a pool On sundown sands when the seas grow suddenly pale. From that day unto this I have not seen Goddess nor mortal, maid nor mortal man: No, nor the grey stairs of Poseidon's home, Nor Helios lighting torches on the hills, Nor any queen hour laughing on the slopes Where the watercourses are, nor almond blossom Foaming the pools where purple iris grow. No, never once have I beheld my kind; Never the goatherd fluting to his flock Black-feeted kids amid the lava blocks Stained with old lichen, yellow with flowering spurge; Nor the white train of sacred maids down-wending By the fig-bordered ways of holy Inessa, Nor the gold filleted ancient men who bow At Hybla, nor the blue-robed youths who stand Watching the thousand hounds of Hadranon. Yea, all these weary years I have not seen. In gracious places I have never heard The chorus rave, nor the solitary hymn Peal from the heights of Enna when the doves Gather like flames before the Kore's fane: Nor laughter in the nightingale-haunted woods When the moon lifts the silver from the pools And ripples it lightly through the rippling boughs; Never for me the chariot-race, the games, The sounds of down-falling cars in gladsome havens, The kiss of wife or child, the choric song Of kings and wars and mighty kings of old, The bubble from the wine-skin, the gay jibe And all familiar things of the old-time day, For I am old and blind: for years on years, How many years I know not, have been blind. That sorrow came to me because I saw Divinity unveiled, and for a moment knew The terrible life of immortality. The high gods rule us hardly. If we fail To seek them in their shrines and holy places Sorrows are laid on us, and many plagues, And the awful weight of the superhuman frown. And, if unseen we come upon these folk, Star-tramplers, sea-shod, kindred of the powers That are the Eternal balance of the world, Pitiless are they, or full of dreadful scorn, Or mockery worse than flushing of the levin. But I have served her faithfully, Aweful One. . . . Yea, all these years in blindness and in pain, In sorrow, loneliness and grievous days I have not strayed an hour long from her shrine. Few men come here, to this deserted land: These haste away, so dreadful is the air Of deathless immemorial decays, Cities that were, dis-peopled villages, Gardens, with barren founts and fruitless trees, Old roadways gathered to the prickly-pear, Dry watercourses where the lizards run With withered tongues seeking for bidden dew, And this gaunt solitary ruined fane Whereon is Silence, terrible and alone. Yea, I have kept the sacred fire alit From dusk till dawn, and quenched it at the dawn, And every noon have gathered up the ashes And thrown them in the grey receding wave. Yet never has the goddess deigned to me . . . No, not a word, no, not a little word, Nor even guerdon given, albeit ease Or dreamless sleep, or food, or shade, or warmth, The visitation of unblended hours, The gifts of song, of prophecy, of dream. But, when I die, the crow will pick mine eyes, And if the crawling wave discrown my tomb The clammy fins of fish will touch my bones. [Raising his arms in supplication. O thou who in thy unknown secret power Descendeth hither, coming as a wind That eddies in the grass, and as an eddy Returning when it wills, in a secret way, O thou, Persephoneia, whom men worship High in the holy fane of the sacred Kore Where Enna rears her consecrated steep In frowning flanks of basalt from the wilds Hearken, have pity, give at least a sign. . . . For I have served thee well, who am broken, and blind, And now am old, and soon shall know no more, But be a thing that was not, unrecalled. [The boy suddenly gives three sharp calls on his reed. MELKOS Neanthes . . . what? NEANTHES A shadow suddenly falls Which nothing casts, where no one is! . . . yonder Betwixt the columns where the sea gleams red, As a pomegranate on a dark blue leaf. MELKOS Quick, boy! . . . Neanthes . . . does the beam of light From off the Hyblaean hill yet reach the roof? [Neanthes, leaping to his feet, covers his face, and turns and bounds swiftly away. NEANTHES It comes! It comes! MELKOS [Slowly advancing. Hail to the Kore of Enna, hail! [A pause. Persephoneia! Mother of Life and Death! Hail! Hail, Unbegotten but by the dreams of the gods Foreshaped by him, Poseidon-Hippios, Foreknown of her, Demeter, the veiled Queen! Hail to the Kore! Hail, Persephoneia! [A pause. Though many days have sunk and dark nights risen, Yea, many moons have waxt and waned in vain, And thou hast not revisited this place, Yet art thou come again, O Holy One! I know well by the portents, and the awe That lies on all this breath-suspended shore. [A pause. A sign, a sign, O thou whom I have served In silent adoration all these years! A VOICE Go down to the dim waves and bathe thine eyes. Maybe other gods may serve thee there: Or sleep, or dream. I knew not thou wert blind, Who have never known nor seen that worshipper Save as a shadow flickering in the silence. Go up to the hill-encircled mountain fane That frowns on Enna, and then lay thee down On the altar-step, that so, perchance, my foot May for less than a moment burn thy lips. Then may thy blindness quicken . . . or the dark Drown in upon thee with a deeper night. But trouble me no more with faithful service, That, or unfaithful. Here I dwell alone. [MELKOS stands in silence, then slowly moves towards the sea. As in a dream he walks slowly, through lentisk and tamarisk, often looking back, half in dread, half in expectation. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PERSEPHONE, FALLING by RITA DOVE ADONIS IN WINTER by KENNETH REXROTH SONG OF THE STYGIAN NAIADES by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES PERSEPHONE PAUSES by CAROLYN KIZER MEMORIAL TO D.C.: 2. PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY |
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