ACTUS QUARTUS
105
MEDEA.
But this is like
That Indian fable! of a king: how he,
Taking some woman—an indecent act
Not proper to be done !—against the will
Of priests or princes, sought the nuptial bed
And
‘¢ Climbed the bed’s disastrous side,
He found a serpent, not a bride ;
And scarcely daring to draw breath,
He passed the dumb night-hours with
death,
Till in the morning cold and gray
The hooded fear glided away.
Which morning saw ten thousand pay
The price of jesting with a king !’—
JASON.
Indeed these toils and dangerous pursuits,
Labours and journeys, go to make one
mad.
Well were it to beguile our weariness
With song.
MEDEA.
And here is the sole king of song.|
ORPHEUS.
My song breaks baffled on the rocks of
time
If thy bewitching beauty be the theme.
MEDEA.
Sing me thy song, sweet poet, of the sea,
That song of swimming when thy love lost
sense
Before the passion of the Infinite.
JASON.
The more so as my master warns me oft
Of late how near that island is, where dwell
The alluring daughters of Melpomene.
1 The ‘‘ fable" is Crowley's own,
ORPHEUS.!
Light shed from seaward over breakers bend-
ing
Kiss-wise to the emerald hollows : light
divine
Whereof the sun is God, the sea his
shrine;
Light in vibrations rhythmic; light unending ;
Light sideways from the girdling crags
extending
Unto this lone and languid head of
mine ;
Light, that fulfils creation as with wine,
Flows in the channels of the deep: light,
rending
The adamantine columns of the night,
Is laden with the love-song of the ligit.
Light, pearly-glimmering through dim gulf
and hollow,
Below the foam-kissed lips of all the sea ;
Light shines from all the sky and up to
me
From the amber floors of sand: Light calls
Apollo !
The shafts of fire fledged of the eagle follow
The crested surf, and strike the shore,
and flee
Far from green cover, nymph-enchanted
lea,
Fountain, and plume them white as the sea-
swallow,
And turn and quiver in the ocean, seem-
ing
The glances of a maiden kissed, or
dreaming.
Light, as I swim through rollers green and
gleaming,
Sheds its most subtle sense to penetrate
This heart I thought impervious to Fate,
Now the sweet light, the full delight, is
beaming
1 The song describes Waikiki Beach, near
Honolulu.