White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us,

Thou art come at length More beautiful Than any cool god In a chamber under Lycia’s far coast,

YOU are as gold as the half—ripe grain that merges to gold again, as white as the white rain that beats through

Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea—fish. I cover you with my net. What are you —banded one?

Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone

Can we believe—by an effort comfort our hearts: it is not waste all this, not placed here in disgust, street after street,

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,

O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind

Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…

The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,