LITMIR.BIZ

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       They mount to the last hill-crest.

       Dissatisfied and weary

       She sees the blade of the sea

       Dividing earth and heaven

       In a glitter of ecstasy.

       Sudden a dark-faced stranger

       With his back to the sun, holds out

       His arms; so she lights from her palfrey

       And turns her round about.

       She has given the child to Joseph,

       Gone down to the flashing shore;

       And Joseph, shading his eyes with his hand,

       Stands watching evermore.

       SECOND PART

       THE sea in the stones is singing,

       A woman binds her hair

       With yellow, frail sea-poppies,

       That shine as her fingers stir.

       While a naked man comes swiftly

       Like a spurt of white foam rent

       From the crest of a falling breaker,

       Over the poppies sent.

       He puts his surf-wet fingers

       Over her startled eyes,

       And asks if she sees the land, the land,

       The land of her glad surmise.

       THIRD PART

       AGAIN in her blue, blue mantle

       Riding at Joseph's side,

       She says, "I went to Cythera,

       And woe betide!"

       Her heart is a swinging cradle

       That holds the perfect child,

       But the shade on her forehead ill becomes

       A mother mild.

       So on with the slow, mean journey

       In the pride of humility;

       Till they halt at a cliff on the edge of the land

       Over a sullen sea.

       While Joseph pitches the sleep-tent

       She goes far down to the shore

       To where a man in a heaving boat

       Waits with a lifted oar.

       FOURTH PART

       THEY dwelt in a huge, hoarse sea-cave

       And looked far down the dark

       Where an archway torn and glittering

       Shone like a huge sea-spark.

       He said: "Do you see the spirits

       Crowding the bright doorway?"

       He said: "Do you hear them whispering?"

       He said: "Do you catch what they say?"

       FIFTH PART

       THEN Joseph, grey with waiting,

       His dark eyes full of pain,

       Heard: "I have been to Patmos;

       Give me the child again."

       Now on with the hopeless journey

       Looking bleak ahead she rode,

       And the man and the child of no more account

       Than the earth the palfrey trode.

       Till a beggar spoke to Joseph,

       But looked into her eyes;

       So she turned, and said to her husband:

       "I give, whoever denies."

       SIXTH PART

       SHE gave on the open heather

       Beneath bare judgment stars,

       And she dreamed of her children and Joseph,

       And the isles, and her men, and her scars.

       And she woke to distil the berries

       The beggar had gathered at night,

       Whence he drew the curious liquors

       He held in delight.

       He gave her no crown of flowers,

       No child and no palfrey slow,

       Only led her through harsh, hard places

       Where strange winds blow.

       She follows his restless wanderings

       Till night when, by the fire's red stain,

       Her face is bent in the bitter steam

       That comes from the flowers of pain.

       Then merciless and ruthless

       He takes the flame-wild drops

       To the town, and tries to sell them

       With the market-crops.

       So she follows the cruel journey

       That ends not anywhere,

       And dreams, as she stirs the mixing-pot,

       She is brewing hope from despair.

       TRIER