SEMELE.
I.
WHAT were the garden bowers of Thebes to me—
What cared I for their dances and their feasts,
Whose heart was brooding on immortal dreams?
The Greek youths mocked me, since I shunned in scorn
Them and their flattery of my brows and hair.
The light girls pointed after me, who turned
Away, soul-sick, from their vain fooleries.
Apollo's noon-glare wrathfully beat down
Upon the head that would not bend to him—
Him in his petty anger!—as the highest.
In every lily's cup a venomous thing
Crooked out its hairy limbs, or, if I stooped
To pluck a dewy blossom in the grass,
Some squatting horror leered with motionless eyes.
I think the very Earth did hate my feet.
And put forth thistles to them, since I loathed
Her bare, brown bosom: ever the scowling pines
Menaced me with slow arms, hissing their wrath
Behind me, hurrying past their gloom to watch,
Blurred in unsteady tears till all their beams
Dazzled, and shrank, and grew that oval ring
Of shining points, rifting the Milky Way,
Whose starless gap in the dusted fire revealed
The hollow awfulness of Night beyond.
II.
A change came, and a glory fell to me.
No more 'twas Semele, the lonely girl,
But Jupiter's beloved Semele!
With human arms the god came clasping me:
New life streamed from his presence, and a voice,
That scarce could curb itself to the smooth Greek,
Now and anon swept forth, in those rich nights.
Thrilling my flesh with unknown words, that told
I knew not what—hints of unearthly things
Which I had felt on solemn Summer noons,
When sleeping Earth dreamed music, and the soul
Went crooning a low song it could not learn,
But wandered over it, as one who gropes
For a forgotten chord upon the lyre.
