Only her shadow once upon a stone
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tell you you have done her body an ill,You chatterers, you noisy crew!She is not anywhere!I sought her in deep Hell;And through the world as well;I thought of Heaven and I sought her there;Above nor under groundIs Silence to be found,That was the very warp and woof of you,Lovely before your songs began and after they were through!Oh, say if on this hillSomewhere your sister's body lies in death,So I may follow there, and make a wreathOf my locked hands, that on her quiet breastShall lie till age has withered them! (Ah, sweetly from the restI seeTurn and consider meCompassionate Euterpe!)"There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,Beyond the gate of everlasting Life,Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith,"Whereon but to believe is horror!Whereon to meditate engenderethEven in deathless spirits such as IA tumult in the breath,A chilling of the inexhaustible bloodEven in my veins that never will be dry,And in the austere, divine monotonyThat is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood. This is her province whom you lack and seek;And seek her not elsewhere.Hell is a thoroughfareFor pilgrims,--Herakles,And he that loved Euridice too well,Have walked therein; and many more than these;And witnessed the desire and the despairOf souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air;You, too, have entered Hell,And issued thence; but thence whereof I speakNone has returned;--for thither fury bringsOnly the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there." Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory!Be long upon this heightI shall not climb again!I know the way you mean,--the little night,And the long empty day,--never to seeAgain the angry light,Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain!Ah, but she,Your other sister and my other soul,She shall again be mine;And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,A chilly thin green wine,Not bitter to the taste,Not sweet,Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,--To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth--But savoring faintly of the acid earth,And trod by pensive feetFrom perfect clusters ripened without hasteOut of the urgent heatIn some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine.
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