how life is short and fades, nevermore to return;
and when they had well weighed all things outside your door,
they knocked, and drowned with your soft arms in Lethe’s flower, 1400
while you, in your wide holy bed, held gallantly
the tough ramparts entrusted you in this great war.
O limping, white-haired, one-toothed, gallant warrior,
you’ve fought in the great fight and come close to your goal.
Your health, dear friend! The fruit is good! Hail and farewell!” 1405
The old recruit of kisses heard her praises told,
and her loins filled with joy, her sagging dugs grew firm,
her long life glittered like a pomegranate tree,
her bed clashed like a war-shield in the strife of love,
like a young girl she danced among her garden blooms 1410
and all the contours of her face glowed with love’s flame.
Odysseus leapt into his skiff, a youth renewed,
cast in his hold the pomegranates like old friends,
gripped all the landscape with his reaching glance, then loosed
his mind’s five tentacles and fondled all the earth. 1415
An octopus in rut who flings a tentacle
on his unmoving mate with slowly sucking pores,
then draws it softly back and casts another arm
and strokes her mutely in the depths for hour on hour—
thus did the dying man’s long mind reach out to stroke 1420
the earth with all his smell, his touch, his taste, to clasp
her tightly in his arms and speak his last farewell.
The sun sank, and the face of widowed earth grew dark
as though she wept because her lover was now leaving;
the shore sank, and the wounded light fought gallantly 1425
on the tall peaks until it fell to night’s assault.
The archer of the sun watched the world slowly fade,
and after many moons had passed above his head
and he was sailing through the world’s vast hopeless snows,
he quite forgot that earth had passed from his glazed eyes, 1430
and but one scene remained deep in his memory’s pit:
once when he had skimmed close along some looming cliffs,
it darkened, all the silver-smoking waters dulled,
and as he looked high at the crags with head upturned
he suddenly felt thick drops of honey strike his lips. 1435
He licked his mouth, then cupped his hands against his eyes,
for high in a deep hollow by some wild fig trees
he saw an ungleaned honeycomb of monstrous size
that hung above the waste sea, slowly melting drop
by drop, hushed, useless, fading in the dark abyss of night. 1440
XXII
O Virtue, precious and light-sleeping daughter of man,
how you rejoice when, all alone, biting your lips,
poor, persecuted, thrust into the desolate wastes,
you find no friend on whom to cling, no straw to clutch,
for there no souls crowd round to marvel at your grace, 5
no gods are there for whose dear sake you fling your lance,
yet upright, silent, you fight in the wild wastes and know
you’ll never win, but battle only for your own sake.
Rise high, O Virtue, gaze now on that white-haired head
with its despairing brilliant brain that sails and plays 10
its gleaming tentacles like a frail nautilus.
Joy, sorrow, life and death blow through his tossing heart
like four swift winds and drive his flesh and mind down toward
the plunging cliff, two lovers clasped in tight embrace.
He’s harvested the sea and all the joys of earth, 15
he’s plucked their flower whose honeyed poisons choke the heart
and hung it on his ear, then sung and strolled toward Death.
If earth had mind, it would rejoice, if fate had eyes
it would embrace this old and mighty warrior, touch
with fear and admiration his deep wounds and clutch 20
him tight so that it, too, might not descend to Hades.
All stones would burst in threnody, all trees would wail,
all beasts would snarl and raise their paws to pounce on Death,
and the most lustrous maids would strip their bodies bare
to lure Death on so that upon the downy daze 25
of their sweet breasts he might forget that holy head.
But earth is stupid and fate purblind; both have sent
that mighty lighthouse, that great sleepless brain to die
unwept and unprotected in the frozen wastes.
The sun like a gold quoit sped down the heaven’s road, 30
and the round silver moon rose like a dead man’s mask
and covered the pale tranquil face of the brain-archer.
He sailed in his light coffin all day, all night long,
and the whole sky and sea stretched taut like a curved bow
against his hoary-haired swift-dying chest until 35
he felt his skiff between them speed like a swift arrow.
Above his white head seagulls slowly rowed and sailed
a day or two, but then grew tired and swerved back;
a lean sea-eagle wove him wreaths in air all day,
perched like a sleepless ship’s boy on his mast all night, 40
but on the seventh day it, too, grew weary and flew away.
Two sharp-nosed frothing sharks followed like hungry dogs,
opened and closed their gleaming teeth with longing greed,
but when they lost all hope of food, they plunged away.
“Farewell! Turn to your prey, I’m not yet food for sharks,” 45
the boatman mocked, and cast off fish and birds like old
soiled clothes, and breathed the crystal solitude, stripped bare.
At times birds passed above him, smeared with sweetest scent,
and their sharp claw-tips dripped with musk and the air flashed
like a cock-pheasant’s feathers, gold and crimson wings. 50
At times a feather fell upon his foam-washed deck,
but the quick-handed man flung it upon the waves:
“Farewell, O wings and fragrances, ideas, dreams,
farewell O multicolored precious filigrees of air!”
His lone heart played and beat profoundly, his eyes flashed, 55
his mind flew back and forth in the vast solitude
like a swift eagle, and space sank, and time was conquered,
and all his oldest joys shone in an instant flash
until his heaving and unheaving heart could not
recall such great untrammeled joy, such lofty flight. 60
Sweet, very sweet had been his dread on that first night
when in the dark he’d laid his hand on a maid’s body;
how like a hawk he’d shrieked, how all the world had sighed
when in his arms he’d held a son for the first time!
And then that third dread shriek when on a distant plain 65
he’d held on high his foe’s slain head for the first time!—
but no past joy could match the joy that filled him here!
Astride his coffin now he dashed toward his great host,
grim Death and his spread feast, and in his hand he held
as gift, wrapped in fresh grapevine leaves, his own white head. 70
In that black whirlpool hour of parting when the soul
clutches the body in great fear and won’t let go,
the lone man’s savage heart quailed not, his mind shook not,
but in the just scales of his inner pride he weighed
his soul well, wing and claw, and found it was not wanting. 75
His mind between his temples swelled like
a red rose
brimming with drops of crystal dew and honeybees,
and now he rode toward the Unknown’s great portal, there
to lean his large and sated brow and call that huge
and black-striped yellow wasp to plunder all his honey. 80
An old, old marriage song now tingled on his lips
that his old nurse had sung thousands of years ago
when as a lad he’d broken spears with clay toy gods;
now it returned and took new strength within his mind:
“One day a brave young man set out to get engaged 85
but neither did he change his clothes nor zone his belt,
and left his sword deserted on the wall to rust;
nor did he turn to Starbrow, his swift-footed mare,
to stroke her long and silky mane and say goodbye.
His mother stood on her worn threshold and cried out: 90
‘My son, put on your wedding cloak and zone your belt,
don’t startle your new bride, don’t shame your father-in-law,
go fill your purse with gold and give alms to the poor.’
‘There where I go to get engaged, now, Mother dear,
no one will ask about my clothes or crimson belts, 95
the poor there do not long for gold, for all are lords,
their wine is an abyss, their sheep unnumbered stones,
the bride lies in her bridal bed and has no eyes.’ ”
Thus did the old betrothed man sing, and sailed his skiff
upon a thick and desolate sea that slowly seethed 100
and smelled of fragrance like white-blossomed almond trees.
About a rock toward evening in the open sea
he saw a swarm of sharks cut through the frothing waves
tumultuously with gaping jaws and saw-sharp teeth.
The dying bridegroom laughed and hailed his savage friends: 105
“Welcome, thrice welcome, bidden guest’s with your large teeth;
I’ll strew fine food on foam for you to gobble soon!”
But all at once he uttered a hoarse cry, for all
the sharks were dashing through love’s ring for their own joy:
nine bridegrooms there were chasing one lone bride, nine jaws 110
gaped frenziedly and churned the waves with frothing blood,
but the white bride, indifferent and alone, swam on,
awaiting the strong conqueror to make her deathless.
The lone man stooped and watched the foam-washed wedding pomp
the silent bridegrooms fought to death in roaring waters 115
till all the waves were rimmed with hems of frothing blood;
the lead shark suddenly swerved, trailing long streams of blood,
then others swerved with gaping wounds, and plunged away,
till only the last, strongest, remained, with tail erect.
Watching the conqueror come, the female spread her fins, 120
approached, then brushed his belly with a light caress,
skimmed off, and swerved close once again to arouse the male
who floundered still amid the blood to cleanse his wounds.
“Your health, my brother! You’ve paid well for female wiles!
O bridegroom, may the blue sea grant that not one drop 125
of sperm from your male savage sack may lose its strength,
and may these blood-drenched waters brim with baby sharks;
thus in my own swift passing may I leave my savage sperm!”
The lone man spoke, then as the North Wind gently blew,
he seized the tiller, raised his head and saw night fall 130
and pour down in a black mist while the scattered stars
shone like far burning castles in the sweep of night.
Luminous flashing skates and phosphorescent fish
flame-quivered in the waves as all night long there rolled
the two profound vast rivers which surround the world: 135
the lecherous and night-wandering sky with its fish-swarms
that in deep silence pastures its unnumbered smelt,
and the vast sea with clustered stars of sperm and milt.
The waters gleamed with silver scales, all of night’s heart
was fragrant as a nutmeg tree the dew had drenched, 140
and every dawn the armored sun slashed the horizon
like an impassioned warrior with great force, then rose
and climbed the desolate sky, gazed on the desolate waves
like a lead ram that plods on though its flock is lost.
One dawn Odysseus leapt erect and cocked his ears 145
for he had heard a most sweet sound rise, deep and choked,
from the profoundly green sea’s dark and tranquil depths;
he leant his ear against the deck and heard his skiff
and the waves quivering like a lyre’s impassioned strings,
and then he closed his eyes, and his mind spilled in waves, 150
for he had never heard so sweet a siren before,
as though the sea were a ripe maid who on stone shores
sat weaving for her lover, singing old love songs
while her cool arms, that in the wastes sighed uncaressed,
swayed upright till they turned rose at their fingertips. 155
The skiff seethed suddenly and tossed, a great roar rose,
and as the archer leapt erect he turned and saw
a rushing, tumbling river of fish that swept the sea.
The frothing waters boiled like caldrons of fish stew,
and the mute fish, streaming together in thick swarms, 160
rubbed silver scale on scale till sweet sounds filled the air,
and as the lone man heard the fish’s threnody
he shook to his heart’s root with overflowing joy:
“I’ve said, and say again—I’ve no quarrel with the world,
and if the mind, at my last breath, grow suddenly weak 165
and start to curse, don’t listen, Life, the wretch is mad;
may you be blessed with all your laughter, all your tears!
Ah, could I mount in sun a thousand, thousand times,
I’d start the pitiless ascent once more, O Life,
the wails, the wars with wily gods and stupid men. 170
I’d wait for the love-pointing star to shine, I’d start
once more the night-embracements on the dewy grass.
I turn and gaze on all I’ve done or joyed on earth:
O Life, your sweetness is so great that if but one
drop more should fall, I’d lose my pride and burst in tears!” 175
The lone man thus, with no vain boasts or weak reproach,
sped swiftly toward the South to keep his tryst with Death,
and his desires fell mutely on the waves and drowned
like lovesick girls for whom the world seems too confined.
The sea grew more serene and spread like mother-of-pearl 180
which dolphins ripped through now and then, but still it healed
and thickly poured with graceful tints of oyster shell.
One day at afterglow when the waves rolled serene,
rose-leaved and violet-misted in the cooling dusk,
the sharp world-wandering man’s unfailing eyes caught sight 185
of some low-spreading rose isles made of coral stone.
No huts rose on the shore, no smoke rose through the trees
as the skiff drifted unconcerned toward those round disks
of the waste sea with their coarse sand and brackish water.
A few scant date trees darkly gleamed in the afterglow 190
with amber light, long-leaved amid their sword-sharp boughs,
and from the clefts of coral rock that steamed with heat
thick shaggy crabs and sluggish turtles rose and fell.
As the archer rowed by slowly down the shores, he saw
old
sunken ruined cities, mortar-bound huge blocks, 195
and armor of a moss-green, rust-corroded bronze.
In row on row still stood, or fallen flat, the old
blind hulking gods hewn roughly from huge ancient logs,
within whose monstrous ears at night the bats gave suck
to their small fuzzy babes, and coarse-haired spiders hung 200
in empty nostrils and the eyes’ black moldering pits.
Cracked and in ruins, the deathless lepers stood by waves
as vines twined round their thighs and rotted their black knees;
their eyes had fallen, their teeth had spilled on coral sand,
and now they spread their fingerless and crippled hands 205
in hopes a passing ship might see them and give alms.
But the god-slayer shook his head and curled his lips
and without pity passed the humped and leprous gods:
“Dark demons, we have suffered much in your vast hands
but now our turn has come to glean our glad revenge. 210
Smite without pity, soul! O hammer on anvil, strike!”
He spoke, and his harsh laughter shook the seas as from
the deep heart of a dazzling mist the full moon rose,
a huge and lustrous pearl wedged in its oyster shell,
and the wreathed athlete slowly slid within a glittering fog. 215
The days passed by and stroked the sea with downy touch,
their plucked and gaudy feathers fell upon the waves
as they stripped off their golden bracelets and red cloaks
and drifted by in long straight rows like pallid crones.
Musk-scents evaporated, waters turned opaque, 220
the melancholy sun hung in a boundless mist,
cloud forms of air sailed swiftly in a whitening dome
and a swift secret shivering swept the sea and sky.
The mists slide stealthily within our own hearts, too,
which are not made of stone, alas, but of soft flesh 225
more tender than our lips, and ache as soon as touched,
and stifle if a shade but falls, and break in tears.
The archer’s heart in those wild wastes began to shake,
he sat unmoving by the rudder, clenched his teeth,
and grimly chased away his memories and sweet joys 230
for fear they’d find the secret gate to his hid heart.
His mind raked up a thousand tricks to see him through,
and once when the low sun spilled on the waves like wine
in that sad twilit hour when even God recoils,
a song of his old life leapt in his heart until 235
the archer’s pride rose with its manly yet sad song:
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