The Earth Turns South/Narcissi

by Clement Richardson Wood

NARCISSI

(For My Mother)

I.
They read: A youth in higher Thessaly,
Hot with the chase, came to a lost pool, lying
Under great jutting rocks and a vast tree
That hid it from the sun's hot curious spying,
Still and ice-cool, and ringed with quiet grass
That pressed to curve its blades into the pool,
As rippleless and clear as burnished brass.
He slouched, relieved, to a low shaley stool
And leaned to drink, when in the glass below
A face leaned up to meet him, flushed and laughing,
Gay-eyed, with thirsty lips that formed a bow
As if from his own beauty to be quaffing.
He paused, torn with amazement and faint fear,
At sight of the fair naiad mounting near.

II.
The careless hair, he saw, was in a tousle,
The brow was olive-pale, the cheeks were red
As fresh-clipped roses flung in mad carousal;
The bended neck sloped downward from the head
Like some arched flower's stem, into a cloak
Of mellow white, just of his peplum's hue.
He leaned to kiss the nymph,—the image broke,
A shivering thing that rippled out of view.
He drew away—again the face returned,
The loveliest features that he yet had seen;
He panted for the naiad, his arms burned
To clasp the cager love, who seemed to lean
With wide, taut arms and all-inviting face
As if to drag him down to the embrace.

III.
He gazed around—no spiers. Then he flung
His creamy peplum on a low-grown limb,
Stripped down his sandals, and slipped off and hung
His chiton where it made a screen for him.
He poised, a supple javelin, above
The grassy margin,—and he saw the nymph
Poise in the pool below, beckoning his love
Into the pleasant depths of the still lymph.
A leap, and he was one with pool and lover;
One rather with the pool; the naiad fled,
Fled to some dank bed he could not discover.
He climbed without, pressing his dripping head
With hands that could not stifle vain love's sorrow,
Bound he would track his tempter on the morrow.

IV.
"You fool!" companions jeered, "And is your face
So strange to you, Narcissus, you can throw
Yourself into cach woodland watering place,
Mad to embrace your shadow-self below?"
He would not heed, he sought unceasingly
The treacherous sprite, who answered smile with smile,
Gesture with gesture, pain with misery,
Yet would not yield its body any while.
He sickened and died beside the pool, and not
A seeker found his body; in its stead
A sweet strange flower bloomed upon the spot,
Drooping to its reflection its fair head,
Whose purple heart and creamy petals' hem
Hold still his name and grief embroidering them.

V.
"A foolish tale," they said, and closed the book,
And parted to their tasks. The poet went
And sought his couch, while the world softly took
Away its noisy ache and merriment,
And he, brooding above his spirit pool,
Admiring his own rhymes, his singing gift,
Plunged himself headlong down into the cool
Depths where the hidden inner waters drift,
Then rose, and then again adventured far,
Until life ended, and where he had been
His flower of song shone like a new-spun star,
Lighting the tuneless darkness men were in,
Purple with his heart's cry, and mellow white
With his insistent summons to delight.

VI.
So the musician plumbed his spirit's well,
Whose brooding bosom rippled into song,
Which blossomed after he had gone, to tell
His joy and sorrow to the cowed, dumb throng.
The sculptor sought into his own loved dreaming
The way to wake dead marble into breath,
And now his quiet and frozen flowers are gleaming
Where he was, who lies quiet enough in death.
The actor, singer, each leaves living flowers.
Within the minds and on the lips of men,
Which now we own, and when no longer ours
In other minds and lips will bloom again,
Blossoms on whose live beauty all men look.—
"A foolish tale," they said, and closed the book.