Classic Poem

Hunter ,—Hunter, with the moon-shaped Bow,
Is it man you wait to slay? Or the thirsting doe?’
‘Woman,—strange one, early at the spring,
What is here for your great eyes, in a daily thing?’
‘Hunter,—ah, I know!

‘Morning-dream awoke me, and winged me on my way;
Morning-dream laid on me a hidden thing to say:
When I saw thee bend here the great moon-shapen bow,
And twice and thrice thy fingers plucked the sinew so,
For its yea or nay!

‘Taut it was.—It trembled as a netted bird,
Wild for flight, and shuddering through feathers bright and blurred.
Wild the air fled from it, that spread in echoing rings,
Till it woke a star far-off,—it woke my heart to wings,
Hunter, when I heard,
—With its singing Word!

‘Then it was, the Sun strode singing from his lair,
And bound my sandals on me, and grasped me by my hair,
And sped me forth to meet thee, lord of them that prey,
—Sped me forth to meet thee, with one word to say.
Shall we be no wiser now, than with stone and sling?
Is this too for blood-shed?—This, the moon-shaped thing?
And the god within it?—Wilt thou slay or sing?
—Wilt thou slay or sing?

‘Thou lookest on the creatures, from a high noonday,
With this wonder in thy hand, for thy heart's soothsay:
And the hour calls out on thee:
Shall it sing, or slay?
Shall it sing, or slay?’

‘Woman, wandering woman,—and sudden as a fawn,
What is this moon-madness, by the wells of dawn?
You would bind me with your eyes, that hold me listening:
Trick and bind my heart of wrath that has made me king:—
Shall it slay, or sing!’—

‘Hunter, never arrow spake as that singing word.
Wounded with the joy of it, all my longings stirred,—
Stirred and woke, and woke my heart; as a rescue call
So might burst a captive's bond, to hear his wherewithal!
Even so, the seeking ships, outstripped by a bird,
Strain their thews and struggle on,—to sagas sudden heard,
Of their whitherward!’

‘Woman, weaving mazes of all beyond thy ken,
When the bright wide earth is mine, with all its fighting men,
—Shall be singing then!
Mad one, come to stay me here,—riddling for delay,
Of my weapon that is mine, for my yea and nay,
Would you rather hear it sing, then, than see it slay?
—Turn your eyes away.’

‘Hunter, for the thousand years, do as thou hast done!
Till the red drops flow, flow down, from the blinded Sun;
Till the withered lights drop down, spent, for thee and me,
And the bright things meet the dark, darkened utterly;
Drowned beneath the weeping Dark, underneath the sea;
In the deep on deep of all:—
… Tears, tears, maybe.

‘Sun-mad thou with noonday, and thy red pulse in thee.
Moon-mad I, with anguish of a wonder not to be!’
—‘What is that to thee?’—

‘Hunter, was it nothing? Once to hold in thrall,
With thy hands, the tortured god, that might shew thee all?—
For the moment that it sang,—shuddering for the light,
All my soul was cloven through, pierced with spears of sight.

‘And I saw and heard it. And I saw us twain,
Bright with our own wakened eyes, by this spring again.
And the golden echoes, flocking, sea-bird wise,
Widening to the sea-rim,—fled with golden cries;
Sounding forth a glory, from the strand on strand
Of thy master music, gathered in thy hand:
All the tongues of sooth-say, gathered and set free,
All the tongues of sooth-say,—flame for thee and me!
Till the winds crept closer,—the winds, to understand,—
And the tides to hearken:
And the stars, to see!’