Classic Poem

Pygmalion, Pygmalion, Pygmalion —
A mountain meadow loved Pygmalion.
Where a great shining rock like a fallen shield
Lay heavily in tall grass, he rested once.
Long did it hold the pulsing warmth of his body.
And the apple-tree that shaded him, remembered him;
Grass that was new-born trembled under his feet —
Old withered grass felt green beneath his feet —
And the wide view that sank like sleep after pain
Miles over toppling hills to the wide, still river,
Robed itself in opal, golden and haze for him.

While the sun's shadow stood between light and night
He came, paused and was gone. Though never, never
In the world's old contentment had there passed
Before him any human in this place,
Set lonely were the rock, the tree, the grass.
Longing of the starved heart for a lover gone,
When all is as before, and yet how empty!

White moved his body, crushing the ferns in the valley,
And his happy singing died along far roads;
But loved followed after him — flickered across his sleep,
Breathed pride into his walk, power into his hand,
Sweet restlessness into his quiet thought —
Till he who had needed life now needed more;
And so at last he came to the hills again.

Pygmalion, Pygmalion, Pygmalion —
He said in his pride " Thou art wild, and without life! "
Never feeling the warm dispersed quiet of earth,
Or the slow stupendous heart-beat that hills have.

Pygmalion, Pygmalion, Pygmalion —
He wrenched the shining rock from the meadow's breast,
And out of it shaped the lovely, almost-breathing
Form of his dream of his love of the world's women.
Slim and white was she, whimsical, full of caprice;
Bright sharp in sunlight, languid in shadow of cloud,
Pale in the dawn, and flushed at the end of day.
Staring, he felt of a sudden the quick, fierce urge
Of the will of the grass, and the rock, and the flowering tree;
Knew himself weak and unfulfilled without her —
Knew that he bore his own doom in his breast —
Slave of a stone, unmoving, cold to his touch,
Loving in a stone's way, loving but thrilling never.

In smothering summer silence, pricked with crickets,
Still fell the smiting hammer; happy and loud
Swelled the full-throated song of the adult grass ...
Full-breasted drooped the tree, heavy with apples ...
A wind worn lean from leap-frog over the mountains
Spurted the stiff faun-hair of him — whipped desire,
And a bird song " Faint-faint-faint with love-love-love! "

Blind he stood, while the great sun blundered down
Through planets strung like beads on careless orbits;
Blind to the view that sank like sleep after love,
Miles over blazoned hills to the brazen river,
Ceaselessly changing, color and form and line,
Pomp, blaze, pageantry new to the world's delight ...

Hot moist hands on the glittering flanks, and eager
Hands following the chill hips, the icy breasts —
Lithe, radiant, belly to swelling stone —
" Galatea! " — blast of whispering flame his throat —
" Galatea! Galatea! " — his entrails molten fire —
" Galatea! Galatea! Galatea! " — mouth to mouth

Light shadows of driven clouds on a summer lake —
Ripples on still ponds, winds that ruffle and pass —
Happy young grass rising to drink the rain —
So Galatea under his kisses stirred;
Like a white moth alighted breath on her lips,
Like a blue rent in a storm-sky opened her eyes,
Sweetly the new blood leaped and sang in her veins,
Dumbly, blindly her hands, breast, mouth sought his ...

Pygmalion, Pygmalion, Pygmalion —
Rock is she still and her heart is the hill's heart,
Full of all things beside him — full of wind and bees
And the long falling miles and miles of air.
Despair and gnawing are on him, and he knows her
Unattainable who is born of will and hill —
Far-bright as a plunging full-sailed ship that seems
Hull-down to be set immutable in sea ...