_What of her-- mistress of Death-- what of his kiss?_
Ah, strong were his arms to wrest slight limbs from the beautiful earth, young hands that plucked the first buds of the chill narcissus, soft fingers that broke and fastened the thorny stalk with the flower of wild acanthus.
Ah, strong were the arms that took (ah evil, the heart and graceless,) but the kiss was less passionate!
Drenched with purple, drenched with dye, my wool, bind you the wheel-spokes-- turn, turn, turn my wheel!
Drenched with purple, steeped in the red pulp of bursting sea-sloes-- turn, turn, turn my wheel!
(Ah did he think I did not know, I did not feel-- what wrack, what weal for him: golden one, golden one, turn again Aphrodite with the yellow zone, I am cursed, cursed, undone! Ah and my face, Aphrodite, beside your gold, is cut out of white stone!)
Laurel blossom and the red seed of the red vervain weed, burn, crackle in the fire, burn, crackle for my need! Laurel leaf, O fruited branch of bay, burn, burn away thought, memory and hurt!
(Ah when he comes, stumbling across my sill, will he find me still, fragrant as the white privet, or as a bone, polished in wet and sun, worried of wild beaks, and of the whelps' teeth-- worried of flesh, left to bleach under the sun, white as ash bled of heat, white as hail blazing in sheet-lightning, white as forked lightning rending the sleet?)
On the paved parapet you will step carefully from amber stones to onyx flecked with violet, mingled with light, half showing the sea-grass and sea-sand underneath, reflecting your white feet and the gay strap crimson as lily-buds of Arion, and the gold that binds your feet.
You will pass beneath the island disk (and myrtle-wood, the carved support of it) and the white stretch of its white beach, curved as the moon crescent or ivory when some fine hand chisels it: when the sun slips through the far edge, there is rare amber through the sea, and flecks of it glitter on the dolphin's back and jewelled halter and harness and bit as he sways under it.
It was easy enough to bend them to my wish, it was easy enough to alter them with a touch, but you adrift on the great sea, how shall I call you back?
Cedar and white ash, rock-cedar and sand plants and tamarisk red cedar and white cedar and black cedar from the inmost forest, fragrance upon fragrance and all of my sea-magic is for nought.