Artemis Prologuizes

I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,     And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed     By none whose temples whiten this the world.     Thro Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;     I shed in Hell oer my pale people peace;     On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard     Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek.     And every feathered mothers callow brood,     And all that love green haunts and loneliness.     Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns     Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,     Upon my image at Athenai here;     And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,     Was dearest to me. He my buskined step     To follow thro the wild-wood leafy ways,     And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts     Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,     Neglected homage to another God:     Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke     Of tapers lulled, in jealousy dispatched     A noisome lust that, as the gadbee stings,     Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself     The son of Theseus her great absent spouse.     Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage     Against the miserable Queen, she judged     Life insupportable, and, pricked at heart     An Amazonian strangers race should dare     To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord:     Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll     The fame of him her swerving made not swerve,     Which Theseus read, returning, and believed,     So, exiled in the blindness of his wrath,     The man without a crime, who, last as first,     Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth.     Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained     That of his wishes should be granted Three,     And this he imprecated straight alive     May neer Hippolutos reach other lands!     Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince     Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car,     That gave the feet a stay against the strength     Of the Henetian horses, and around     His body flung the reins, and urged their speed     Along the rocks and shingles of the shore,     When from the gaping wave a monster flung     His obscene body in the coursers path!     These, mad with terror as the sea-bull sprawled     Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him     That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole     Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed,     Hippolutos, whose feet were trammeled fast,     Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein     Which either hand directed; nor was quenched     The frenzy of that flight before each trace,     Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woeful car,     Each boulder-stone, sharp stub, and spiny shell,     Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands     On that detested beach, was bright with blood     And morsels of his flesh: then fell the steeds     Head-foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts,     Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed.     His people, who had witnessed all afar,     Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos.     But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced,     (Indomitable as a man foredoomed)     That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer,     I, in a flood of glory visible,     Stood oer my dying votary, and deed     By deed revealed, as all took place, the truth.     Then Theseus lay the woefullest of men,     And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid     His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed     To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails.     So, I who neer forsake my votaries,     Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake     Should tender, nor pour out the dogs hot life;     Lest at my fain the priests disconsolate     Should dress my image with some faded poor     Few crowns, made favours of, nor dare object     Such slackness to my worshippers who turn     The trusting heart and loaded hand elsewhere     As they had climbed Oulumpos to report     Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne     I interposed: and, this eventful night,     While round the funeral pyre the populace     Stood with fierce light on their black robes that blind     Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped     Oer the dead body of their withered prince,     And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated     On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab     Twas bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief     As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed,     Sending a crowd of sparkles thro the night,     And the gay fire, elate with mastery,     Towered like a serpent oer the clotted jars     Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense,     And splendid gums, like gold, my potency     Conveyed the perished man to my retreat     In the thrice venerable forest here.     And this white-bearded Sage who squeezes now     The berried plant, is Phoibos son of fame,     Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught     The doctrine of each herb and flower and root,     To know their secretst virtue and express     The saving soul of all who so has soothed     With lavers the torn brow and murdered cheeks,     Composed the hair and brought its gloss again,     And called the red bloom to the pale skin back,     And laid the strips and jagged ends of flesh     Even once more, and slacked the sinews knot     Of every tortured limb that now he lies     As if mere sleep possessed him underneath     These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh, cheer,     Divine presenter of the healing rod     Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye,     Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer!     Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies!     And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs,     Ply, as the Sage directs, these buds and leaves     That strew the turf around the Twain! While I     Await, in fitting silence, the event.