AMBERGRIS 
59 
The mounded moss below the swaying beeches— 
Kiss me and clip ! 
 
Why !  the old madness grows !—how feebly lying 
Smooth by this bay where waves are tender flowers. 
Winds, soft as the old kisses were, are sighing. 
Clouds drift across the sun for silken bowers. 
The moon is up—an hastening nymph !  I, dying, 
Await the Hours. 
 
And thou, Persephone, I know thy story, 
That I must taste the terror of thy wrong : 
How Hades ride across the promontory, 
Snatch my pale body in mid over-song, 
Drag me from sight of my Apollo’s glory 
With horses strong. 
 
Nay !  as Apollo half the day is shrouded, 
As Artemis twice seven nights is dark ; 
Surely he shines in other lands unclouded, 
Surely her shaft shall find another mark. 
So dawns the day on Acheron ghost-crowded, 
And on my bark. 
 
I know not how yon world may prove, nor whither 
Hermes conduct me to what farther end. 
Yet if these bays abide, this heart not wither, 
It cannot be I shall not find a friend. 
Some pale immortal lover draw me thither ! 
To kiss me bend ! 
 
Moreover, as Apollo re-arisen 
Flames, with a roaring of the morning sea, 
Up from the stricken gray, the iron-barred prison, 
Flashes his face again upon the lea, 
And diamond dews the woodland ones bedizen ; 
So—so for me !