Darien
It is a poet’s privilege and fate
To fall enamoured of the one Muse
Who variously haunts this island earth.
She was your mother, Darien,
And presaged by the darting halcyon bird
Would run green—sleeved along her ridges,
Treading the asphodels and heather—trees
With white feet bare.
Often at moonrise I had watched her go
And a cold shudder shook me
To see the curved blaze of her Cretan axe.
Averted her set face, her business
Not yet with me, long—striding,
She would ascend the peak and pass from sight.
But once at full moon, by the sea’s verge,
I came upon her without warning.
Unrayed she stood, with long hair streaming,
A cockle—shell cupped in her warm hands,
Her axe propped idly on a stone.
No awe possessed me, only a great grief;
Wanly she smiled, but would not lift her eyes
(As a young girl will greet the stranger).
I stood upright, a head taller than she.
“See who has come,” said I.
She answered: “If I lift my eyes to yours
And our eyes marry, man, what then?
Will they engender my son Darien?
Swifter than wind, with straight and nut—brown hair,
Tall, slender—shanked, grey—eyed, untameable;
Never was born, nor ever will be born
A child to equal my Darien,
Guardian of the hid treasures of your world.”
I knew then by the trembling of her hands
For whom that flawless blade would sweep:
My own oracular head, swung by its hair.
“Mistress,” I cried, “the times are evil
And you have charged me with their remedy.
O, where my head is now, let nothing be
But a clay counterfeit with nacre blink:
Only look up, so Darien may be born.
”He is the northern star, the spell of knowledge,
Pride of all hunters and all fishermen,
Your deathless fawn, and eaglet of your eyrie,
The topmost branch of your unfellable tree,
A tear streaking the summer night,
The new green of my hope." Lifting her eyes
She held mine for a lost eternity.
“Sweetheart,” said I, “strike now, for Darien’s sake!”
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