At evening I went back, Walked past the idle groups at gossipry, Sought you, and laid my hand upon your wrist, Drew you apart, and with no shaken voice Spoke, while the swift, hard strokes my heart out-beat Seemed growing audible, ‘Milanion, I am your wife for freedom and fair deeds: Choose: am I such an one a man could love? What need you? Some soft song to soothe your life, Or a clear cry at daybreak?’ And I ceased. How deemed you that first moment? That the Gods Had changed my heart? That I since morn had grown Haunter of Aphrodite’s golden shrine, Had kneeled before the victress, vowed my vow, Besought her pardon, ‘Aphrodite, grace! Accept the rueful Atalanta’s gifts, Rose wreaths and snow-white doves’?
In the dim woods There is a sacred place, a solitude Within their solitude, a heart of strength Within their strength. The rocks are heaped around A goblet of great waters ever fed By one swift stream which flings itself in air With all the madness, mirth and melody Of twenty rivulets gathered in the hills Where might escapes in gladness. Here the trees Strike deeper roots into the heart of earth, And hold more high communion with the heavens; Here in the hush of noon the silence broods More full of vague divinity; the light Slow-changing and the shadows as they shift Seem characters of some inscrutable law, And one who lingers long will almost hope The secret of the world may be surprised Ere he depart. It is a haunt beloved Of Artemis, the echoing rocks have heard Her laughter and her lore, and the brown stream Flashed, smitten by the splendour of her limbs. Hither I came; here turned, and dared confront Pursuing thoughts; here held my life at gaze, If ruined at least to clear loose wrack away, Study its lines of bare dismantlement, And shape a strict despair. With fixed hard lips, Dry-eyed, I set my face against the stream To deal with fate; the play of woven light Gleaming and glancing on the rippled flood Grew to a tyranny; and one visioned face Would glide into the circle of my sight, Would glide and pass away, so glad, so great The imminent joy it brought seemed charged with fear. I rose, and paced from trunk to trunk, brief track This way and that; at least my will maintained Her law upon my limbs; they needs must turn At the appointed limit. A keen cry Rose from my heart--‘Toils of the world grow strong, ‘Yield strength, yield strength to rend them to my hands; ‘Be thou apparent, Queen! in dubious ways ‘Lo my feet fail; cry down the forest glade, ‘Pierce with thy voice the tangle and dark boughs, ‘Call, and I follow thee.’