The Earth Turns South/Narcissi
NARCISSI
(For My Mother)
I.They read: A youth in higher Thessaly,Hot with the chase, came to a lost pool, lyingUnder great jutting rocks and a vast treeThat hid it from the sun's hot curious spying,Still and ice-cool, and ringed with quiet grassThat pressed to curve its blades into the pool,As rippleless and clear as burnished brass.He slouched, relieved, to a low shaley stoolAnd leaned to drink, when in the glass belowA face leaned up to meet him, flushed and laughing,Gay-eyed, with thirsty lips that formed a bowAs 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 redAs fresh-clipped roses flung in mad carousal; The bended neck sloped downward from the headLike some arched flower's stem, into a cloakOf 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 burnedTo clasp the cager love, who seemed to leanWith wide, taut arms and all-inviting faceAs if to drag him down to the embrace.
III.He gazed around—no spiers. Then he flungHis creamy peplum on a low-grown limb,Stripped down his sandals, and slipped off and hungHis chiton where it made a screen for him.He poised, a supple javelin, aboveThe grassy margin,—and he saw the nymphPoise in the pool below, beckoning his loveInto 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 headWith 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 faceSo strange to you, Narcissus, you can throwYourself into cach woodland watering place,Mad to embrace your shadow-self below?"He would not heed, he sought unceasinglyThe 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 notA seeker found his body; in its steadA sweet strange flower bloomed upon the spot,Drooping to its reflection its fair head,Whose purple heart and creamy petals' hemHold still his name and grief embroidering them.
V."A foolish tale," they said, and closed the book,And parted to their tasks. The poet wentAnd sought his couch, while the world softly tookAway 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 coolDepths where the hidden inner waters drift,Then rose, and then again adventured far,Until life ended, and where he had beenHis flower of song shone like a new-spun star,Lighting the tuneless darkness men were in,Purple with his heart's cry, and mellow whiteWith 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 tellHis joy and sorrow to the cowed, dumb throng.The sculptor sought into his own loved dreamingThe way to wake dead marble into breath, And now his quiet and frozen flowers are gleamingWhere 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 oursIn other minds and lips will bloom again,Blossoms on whose live beauty all men look.—"A foolish tale," they said, and closed the book.