Atys Captive

The luminous day rolls downward into death,
And Sardis burns to fire his funeral.
My father's marbles cannot cool the light.
Pactolus vapours into nothingness,
And the bronze air is living. How hard's the tower
Staunch in its round completeness to withstand me!
With fretted dados and white Grecian beds,
And sickly perfumes smothering the air—
The air, the very air cannot be free!
O to plunge downwards in the silken seas,
Have the wet waters kiss my front, and push
The face of all my limbs against its cool!
To be a sail for the wind; become a part
Of the raw manhood of its gusty sting,
And shivering rain—my fair old feast-companions!
The gracious splendour of the chuckling oars,
The hunt in the child-morning, when the knees
Gather the dew from off the rain-lashed grasses;
And the flat ocean, and the singing stars,
Shocked at the storm's cessation; the loose robes
Of the bronze huntsmen the high winds tear and kiss—
O 'twere too sensual action! These giving cushions
Cluster about my throat, infest me—pah!
I am suffocated. Adrastes! O Adrastes!
Grant me that I may batter through this iron,
Chafe all these locked doors to nothingness,
Battle to health and movement—and so die!

C.I.P.