Hymen, O Hymen king, what bitter thing is this? what shaft, tearing my heart? what scar, what light, what fire searing my eye—balls and my eyes w…

Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…

Each of us like you has died once, has passed through drift of wood—l… cracked and bent and tortured and unbent

From citron—bower be her bed, cut from branch of tree a—flower, fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, cut the width of board and lathe,

Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear—head On the shore? What note shall we pitch? We have a song,

The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed—time and of sun and rain; Demeter in the grass,

White, O white face— from disenchanted days wither alike dark rose and fiery bays: no gift within our hands,

Thou art come at length More beautiful Than any cool god In a chamber under Lycia’s far coast,

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,

YOU are as gold as the half—ripe grain that merges to gold again, as white as the white rain that beats through

NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree

The light passes from ridge to ridge, from flower to flower— the hepaticas, wide—spread under the light