Abashed before the god's entreaties stood Idas. And the heart of Marpessa was torn as she heard the burning words of the beautiful Apollo still ringing through her head, and saw her mortal lover, silent, white-lipped, gazing first at the god and then into her own pale face. At length he spoke:
"After such argument what can I plead?
"Or what pale promise make? Yet since it is
"In woman to pity rather than to aspire,
"A little I will speak. I love thee then
"Not only for thy body packed with sweet
"Of all this world, that cup of brimming June,
"That jar of violet wine set in the air.
"That palest rose sweet in the night of life;
"Nor for that stirring bosom all besieged
"By drowsing lovers, or thy perilous hair;
"Nor for that face that might indeed provoke
"Invasion of old cities; no, nor all
"Thy freshness stealing on me like strange sleep.
"Nor for this only do I love thee, but
"Because Infinity upon thee broods;
"And thou art full of whispers and of shadows.
"Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say
"So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell;
"Thou art what all the winds have uttered not.
"What the still night suggesteth to the heart.
"Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth.
"Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea;
"Thy face remembered is from other worlds,
"It has been died for, though I know not when.
"It has been sung of, though I know not where.
"It has the strangeness of the luring West,
"And of sad sea-horizons; beside thee
"I am aware of other times and lands.
"Of birth far-back, of lives in many stars.
"O beauty lone and like a candle clear
"In this dark country of the world! Thou art
"My woe, my early light, my music dying."—Stephen Phillips.
