Classic Poem

No palm-grove, green mid lion-coloured sands,
No forest-heaving mount, no river coiled
Involving in clear silver fair champaigns,
Saw Io, mad and dizzied vagabond,
Full thirty days, so long the visible wrath
Of Hera as a gad-fly followed her.

First from the awful pinnacle whereon,
Like a wrecked star, the lorn Prometheus lay,
Precipitated. Pine on pine was crashed;
Stone — dusty, fiery — bounded after stone;
The startled eagle's scream, a moment's space,
Vanquished the clash of cataracts. Then on
Through deep Armenia, where the baffled snow
Glares on the plenteous mulberry secure
In sheltering glens. Then headlong through the still
Mesopotamia's plashed unbroken plain;
Then ever-hungering deserts, no man's land,
By Syria and Arabia both disowned:
Till her strength failed her, and she fell at once,
Unwitting where.
Grey-cushioned on soft mist,
Fumed from broad fens, reposed the sullied moon.
A slow stream nursed her image, as a weak,
Down-couching mother holds her new-born babe
Up toward the father's face. Green curtainers,
The rigid reeds upstood, and tressy sedge
Bathed in the water. Ever and anon
The crocodile plunged stone-like; herded bulks
Of tumbling, snorting hippopotami,
Churned the smooth light, or, dripping as they rose,
Pashed the tall flowering marsh where Io slept.

She woke in sunlight. As an alchemist
From crucible to chalice, Libya poured
A molten flood on Egypt. Golden sheets
Unbeaded by a bubble. Like a cloud
Ibis and pelican and feathery rose
Of flushed flamingo hovered o'er the stream.
Where the winged anguish? vanished! In its stead
Stood mighty female forms, austerely proud
In the calm grandeur of colossal limbs.
Linen their raiment, needle-wrought with gold,
Gold-cinctured, billowing on the bosom, sunk
Decorous to the bulrush-sandalled feet.
Braided the hair on each dark front serene,
Jet-spiked by each smooth ear. Their almond eyes
Dwelt mildly on the prostrate one, their hands
Shook silverly the sistrum while they said: —

" The land of refuge hails thee! Hera's frown
Melts in maternal Isis gravely mild.
Come, Io — Io, come — and be our queen.

The millet thickens, and the joyous vine
Runs riot in the Mareotic marsh;
The palm is doubly plumed, gourds doubly gild
The earth by Io gladdened with a queen.

I listened from the island in the Nile;
The waves were musical, the wheeling stars
Chimed in their courses, from the looming fane
Lowed sacred Apis, and the voice of all
Saluted Io coming to be queen.

A sound goes forth from Ethiopia;
The hills unlock their fountains, burdened clouds
Unsluice their murky waters, rills with rain
Roll, rage and roar; soon Nile with mighty floods
Comes crowding on the land and blesses it —
More blest with Io coming to be queen.

The dusky faces swarm into the streets;
They wait for thee with leopards leashed in gold,
With ebon, ivory, frankincense, and myrrh.
The cymbals clash around Amenophis
Sole-sitting in his royal seat; his lords
Look forth and hear him crying: " See ye aught
Of my dark sisters and my golden queen? " "

Then went she with them. Through plains, water-like
With the green millet's glimmer; past the huts
Huddled in date-trees; where the sifted sand
Locked the laborious foot, and cattle lay
Cool in the shadow of the pyramid;
Through avenues enormous, sphinx on sphinx,
And pillared streets and shouting multitudes.
So to the palace, niched with gilded forms
Of god and sage, and bright with giant kings
Warring for ever on the pictured frieze;
Then the great court, awful with deities,
Where pressed Amenophis his vivid throne,
That seemed a golden glowing apple, rolled
From the bent knees of his colossal gods.