HEPHAESTUS
Take her, O Ares! As Demeter mourned
Through many-fountained Enna, I shall grieve
Forlorn a time, and then, it may be, learn,
Some still autumnal twilight by the sea
Golden with sunlight, to remember not!
As the dark pine forgoes the pilgrim thrush
I, sad of heart, yet unimpassioned, yield
To you this surging bosom soft with dreams,
This body fashioned of Aegean foam
And languorous moonlight. But I give you not
The eluding soul that in her broods and sleeps,
And ne’er was mine of old, nor can be yours.
It was not born of sea and moon with her,
And though it nests within her, no weak hand
Of hers shall cage it as it comes and goes,
Sorrows and wakens, sleeps, and sings again.
And so I give you but the hollow lute,
The lute alone, and not the voices low
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