Hippolytus Temporizes

-H.D.

 

I worship the greatest first–

(it were sweet, the couch,

the brighter ripple of cloth

over the dipped fleece;

the thought: her bones

under the flesh are white

as sand which along a beach

covers but keeps the print

of the crescent shapes beneath:

I thought:

between cloth and fleece,

so her body lies.)

 

I worship first, the great–

(ah, sweet, your eyes–

what God, invoked in Crete,

gave them the gift to part

as the Sidonian myrtle-flower

suddenly, wide and swart,

then swiftly,

the eye-lids having provoked our hearts–

as suddenly beat and close.)

 

I worship the feet, flawless,

that haunt the hills–

(ah, sweet, dare I think,

beneath fetter of golden clasp,

of the rhythm, the fall and rise

of yours, carven, slight

beneath straps of gold that keep

their slender beauty caught,

like wings and bodies

of trapped birds.)

 

I worship the greatest first–

(suddenly into my brain–

the flash of sun on the snow,

the fringe of light and the drift,

the crest and the hill-shadow–

ah, surely now I forget,

ah splendour, my goddess turns:

or was it the sudden heat,

beneath quivering of molten flesh,

of veins, purple as violets?)