The Golden Journey

All day he drowses by the sail             With dreams of her, and all night long             The broken waters are at song             Of how she lingers, wild and pale,             When all the temple lights are dumb,             And weaves her spells to make him come.             The wide sea traversed, he will stand             With straining eyes, until the shoal             Green water from the prow shall roll             Upon the yellow strip of sand--             Searching some fern-hid tangled way             Into the forest old and grey.             Then he will leap upon the shore,             And cast one look up at the sun,             Over his loosened locks will run             The dawn breeze, and a bird will pour             Its rapture out to make life seem             Too sweet to leave for such a dream.             But all the swifter will he go             Through the pale, scattered asphodels,             Down mote-hung dusk of olive dells,             To where the ancient basins throw             Fleet threads of blue and trembling zones             Of gold upon the temple stones.             There noon keeps just a twilight trace;             Twixt love and hate, and death and birth,             No man may choose; nor sobs nor mirth             May enter in that haunted place.             All day the fountain sphynx lets drip             Slow drops of silence from her lip.             To hold the porch-roof slender girls             Of milk-white marble stand arow;             Doubt never blurs a single brow,             And never the noon's faintness curls             From their expectant hush of pride             The lips the god has glorified.             But these things he will barely view,             Or if he stay to heed them, still             But as the lark the lights that spill             From out the sun it soars unto,             Where, past the splendors and the heats,             The sun's heart's self forever beats.             For wide the brazen doors will swing             Soon as his sandals touch the pave;             The anxious light inside will wave             And tremble to a lunar ring             About the form that lieth prone             Before the dreadful altar-stone.             She will not look or speak or stir,             But with drowned lips and cheeks death-white             Will lie amid the pool of light,             Until, grown faint with thirst of her,             He shall bow down his face and sink             Breathless beneath the eddying brink.             Then a swift music will begin,             And as the brazen doors shut slow,             There will be hurrying to and fro,             And lights and calls and silver din,             While through the star-freaked swirl of air             The god's sweet cruel eyes will stare.