first at the god and then into her own
pale face. At length he spoke:

"After such argument what can I plead?
Or what pale promise make? Yet since it is
In woman to pity rather than to aspire,
A little I will speak. I love thee then
Not only for thy body packed with sweet
Of all this world, that cup of brimming June,
That jar of violet wine set in the air,
That palest rose sweet in the night of life;
Nor for that stirring bosom all besieged
By drowsing lovers, or thy perilous hair;
Nor for that face that might indeed provoke
Invasion of old cities; no, nor all
Thy freshness stealing on me like strange sleep.
Nor for this only do I love thee, but
Because Infinity upon thee broods;
And thou art full of whispers and of shadows.
Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say
So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell;
Thou art what all the winds have uttered not,
What the still night suggesteth to the heart.
Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth,
Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea;
Thy face remembered is from other worlds,
It has been died for, though I know not when,
It has been sung of, though I know not where.
It has the strangeness of the luring West,
And of sad sea-horizons; beside thee
I am aware of other times and lands,
Of birth far-back, of lives in many stars.
O beauty lone and like a candle clear
In this dark country of the world! Thou art
My woe, my early light, my music dying."

Stephen Phillips.

Then Idas, in the humility that comes from perfect love, drooped low
his head, and was silent. In silence for a minute stood the three--a
god, a man, and a woman. And from on high the watching stars looked
down and marvelled, and Diana stayed for a moment the course of her
silver car to watch, as she thought, the triumph of her own invincible
brother.

From man to god passed the eyes of Marpessa, and back from god to man.
And the stars forgot to twinkle, and Diana's silver-maned horses pawed
the blue floor of the sky, impatient at the firm hand of the mistress
on the reins that checked their eager course.

Marpessa spoke at last, in low words that seemed to come "remembered
from other worlds."

For all the joys he offered her she thanked Apollo. What grander fate
for mortal woman than to rule the sunbeams--to bring bliss to the
earth and to the sons of men?