Poems (Nora May French)/The Nymph
THE NYMPH
FROM forest paths we turned us, nymphs, new-made, And, lifting eyes abashed with great desire Before high Jove, the gift of souls we prayed.
Whereat he said: "O perfect as new leaves New glossed and veined with blood of perfect days And stirred to murmured speech in fragrant eves,
"Still ask ye souls? Behold, I give instead Into each breast a bird with lettered wings, A bird fast holden with a silken thread:
"To fall from trial of flight with strength swift spent, To sing of mating and the brooding grass, To turn thy being earthward to content."
Within me sudden wrath and terror strove, And, casting forth his gift I cried aloud: "I pray thee for a soul in truth, great Jove!"
Then smiled he slowly, lifting to my look A fabric where the rippled lustre played And shifted like the humor of a brook—
All prism-hued, as upward eyes may see The sun through dazzled lashes. Straight I cried: "I know not this!" "Thy soul," he answered me.
But when my joy had seized it, "Nay," he said, And cast it gleaming to the scattering wind— Hues green and golden, blue and fervent red.
Within his hand the brightest shred of all— The very heart and secret of the web—That held he fast and loosed he not at all;
But to me said: "O thou who scorned the dole That gave thee peace of days and long content, Do now my will. Go forth and find thy soul."
To earth we went, nor knew I from that hour My sister's joy or pain; but on great morns When low light slept above a world in flower,
Through drowsing noons where heat and color lie In ever wavering tides of airy seas, Winged by the darting ships of dragon-flies—
Through these and twilight peace I went, and rid My steps of comrades. Lonely must I find The silent places where my soul was hid.
In sheltered ways with summer showers sweet I wandered on a day, and singing found The very green I sought beneath my feet.
In leafing forests when the year was new, And heaven ribboned in the crossing boughs, I gathered marvelous strip on strip of blue.
When on a lonely stream the moon was bright, A Naiad from her treasure plucked me forth Such gold as bound my web with threads of light.
And red. Ah, love! thou knowest how I came Unto thy timing in the breathless eve, And burned my heart's pale flower to scarlet flame! . . .
One morn I found within a drop of dew— My very soul: a crystal world it was Wherein the varied earth and heaven's blue
And myself gazing glassed in perfect sphere— But long above it was my wonder bent, And lo! it dried more swiftly than a tear.
Now is this truth, O Jove, that I have won And woven all the shreds thou gay'st the wind? But how, I pray thee, can my task be done
Unless thou ope thine hand, unless thou loose The very heart and secret of the web Where every thread may end and know its use?
Joy hast thou not withheld, nor love denied, Nor any beauty dimmed on earth or sky, Yet by thy will I roam unsatisfied.
But couldst thou hear again that earliest plea, Again my choice would flout the lesser gift, And willing take this task thou grantest me—
To search the heart and secret of the whole, To twine the eager hues of varied days, And to its bright perfection weave a soul.