Selected Poems (Aiken)/Psychomachia
PSYCHOMACHIA
I
Tent-caterpillars, as you see, (he said)Have nested in these cherry-trees, and strippedAll sound of leaves from them. You see their websLike broken harp-strings, of a fairy kind,Shine in the moonlight.
Shine in the moonlight.And then I to him:But is this why, when all the houses sleep,You meet me here,—to tell me only this,That caterpillars weave their webs in trees?This road I know. I have walked many timesThese sandy ruts. I know these starveling trees,Their gestures of stiff agony in winter,And the sharp conscious pain that gnaws them now.But there is mystery, a message learned,A word flung down from nowhere, caught by you,And hither brought for me. How shines that word,From what star comes it? . . . This is what I seek.
And he in answer: Can you hear the bloodCry out like jangled bells from all these twigs;Or feel the ghosts of blossom touch your face?Walk you amid these trees as one who walks Upon a field where lie the newly slainAnd those who darkly die? And hear you crying?Flesh here is torn from flesh. The tongue's plucked out.What speech then would you have, where speech is tongueless,And nothing, nothing, but a welling up of pain?
I answered: You may say these smitten trees,Being leafless, have no tongues and cannot speak.How comforts that my question? . . . You have come,I know, as you come always, with a meaning.What, then, is in your darkness of hurt trees;What bird, sequestered in that wildernessOf inarticulate pain, wrong ill-endured,And death not understood, but bides his timeTo sing a piercing phrase? Why sings he not?I am familiar, long, with pain and death,Endure as all do, lift dumb eyes to questionUncomprehended wounds; I have my forestOf injured trees, whose bare twigs show the moonTheir shameful floating webs; and I have walked,As now we walk, to listen there to bellsOf pain, bubbles of blood, and ached to feelThe ghosts of blossom pass. But is there notThe mystery, the fugitive shape that singsA sudden beauty there that comes like peace?
You know this road, he said, and how it leadsBeyond starved trees to bare grey poverty. grass;Then lies the marsh beyond, and then the beach,With dry curled waves of sea-weed, and the sea.There, in the fog, you hear the row-locks thump,And there you see the fisherman come inFrom insubstantial nothing to a shoreAs dim and insubstantial. He is old,His boat is old and grey, the oars are worn.You know this,—you have seen this?
You know this,—you have seen this?And then I:I know, have seen this, and have felt the shoreAs dim and thin as mist; and I have wonderedThat it upheld me, did not let me fall Through nothing into nothing . . . And the oars,Worn down like human nerves against the world;And the worn road that leads to sleeping housesAnd weeping trees. But is this all you say?For there is mystery, a word you haveThat shines within your mind. Now speak that word.
And he in answer: So you have the landscapeWith all its nerves and voices. It is yours.Do with it what you will. But never tryTo go away from it, for that is death.Dwell in it, know its houses, and cursed trees,And call it sorrow. Is this not enough?Love you not shameful webs? It is enough.There is no need for bird, or sudden peace.
II
The plain no herbage had, but all was bareAnd swollen livid sand in ridges heaped;And in the sharp cold light that filled the eastBeneath one cloud that was a bird with wingsI saw a figure shape itself, as whirlingIt took up sand and moved across the sand.A man it was, and here and there he ranBeating his arms, now falling, rising now,Struggling, for so it seemed, against the air.But, as I watched, the cloud that was a birdLifted its wings; and the white light intensePoured down upon him. Then I saw him, naked,Amid that waste, at war with a strange beastOr monster, many-armed and ever-changing;That now was like an octopus of air,Now like a spider with a woman's hairAnd woman's hands, and now was like a vineThat wrapped him round with leaves and sudden flowers,And now was like a huge white thistledownFloating; and with this changing shape he foughtFurious and exhausted, till at lengthI saw him fall upon it in the sandAnd strangle it. Its tentacles of leaves Fell weakly downward from his back, its flowersTurned black. And then, as he had whirled at first,So whirled he now again, and with his feetDrew out the sand, and made a pit, and flungThe scorpion-woman-vine therein, and heapedThe sand above.
The sand above.And then I heard him singAnd saw him dance; and all that swollen plainWhere no herb grew, became a paradiseOf flowers, and smoking grass, and blowing treesThat shook out birds and song of birds. And heIn power and beauty shining like a demonDanced there, until that cloud that was a birdLet fall its wings and darkened him, and hidThe shining fields. But still for long I heardHis voice, and bird-song bells about him chiming,And knew him dancing there above that grave.
II
Said he: Thus draw. your secret sorrow forth,Whether it wear a woman's face or not;Walk there at dusk beside that grove of trees,And sing, and she will come. For while she hauntsYour shameful wood with all its webs and woundsAnd darkly broods and works her mischief there,No peace you'll have, but snares, and poisonous flowersAnd trees in lamentation. Call her outAs memory cries the white ghost from the tomb.Play the sharp lyric flute, for that she loves,With topaz phrases for her vanity.
And I in answer: She is dear to me,Dearer that in my mind she makes a darkOf woods and rocks and thorns and venomous flowers.What matter that I seldom see her face,Or have her beauty never? She is there,It is her voice I hear in cries of trees.This may be misery, but it is blest. Then he: And when you have her, strongly takeHer protean fiery body and lithe armsAnd wailing mouth and growing vines of hairAnd leaves that turn to hands, and bear her forthInto that landscape that is rightly yoursAnd dig a grave for her, and thrust her inAll writhing, and so cover her with earth.Then will the two, as should be, fuse in one.The landscape, that was dead, will straightway shineAnd sing and flower about you, trees will growWhere desert was, water will flash from dust,And rocks grow out in leaves. And you, this griefTorn from your heart and planted in your world,Will know yourself at peace.
Will know yourself at peace.But will it be,—I asked,—as bright a joy to see that landscapePut on diffused her wonder, sing her name,Burn with the vital secret of her bodyThere locked in earth like fire, as now to haveHer single beauty fugitive in my mind?If she is lost, will flowering rocks give peace?
And he in answer: So you have the landscapeWith all her nerves and voices . . . She is yours.