Classic Poem

Nor could thy beauty, Cyllarus,
Protect thee in the fray;
If we may speak of shapes like thine
After a human way.

His beard was in the flowery bud,
Touched, like his hair, with gold;
And down beneath his shoulder-blades
His tresses ran, and rolled.

An earnest cheer was in his look;
And every human part,
His neck, his shoulders, hands, and breast,
Matched with the proudest art.

Such was his look and shape, to where
The nether form began;
Nor where he put the courser on,
Dishonoured he the man.

E'en Castor might have ridden him
But for his double make;
So built with muscle was his chest,
So rideable his back.

And blacker was his noble hue
Than is the pitchy night;
Only a snowy tail and feet
Finished his look with light.

Many fair creatures of his kind
Besought his love; but he
Was borne away by only one,
The sole Hylonome

No gentle woman-hearted thing
Of all the half-human race,
Carried about the shady woods
A more becoming grace.

With pretty natural blandishments,
And loving, and at last
Owning her love with rosy talk,
She bound the conqueror fast.

Her limbs, as much as in her lay,
She kept adorned with care,
And took especial pride to sleek
Her lightsome locks of hair.

With rosemary she wreathed them now
With violets and the rose;
And now betwixt their glossy black,
Sparkled the lily snows.

No vest but of the choicest skin,
And suiting her, she wore
About her shoulder, or would cross
Beside her and before.

And twice a day, in lapsing wells
That from the woods came down,
She bathed her face; and twice a day,
She bathed from sole to crown.

Equal alike the beauty was,
Equal the love in either;
They roamed the mountains hand-in-hand,
And sheltered close together.

And thus did they attend that day
The Lapithean bride;
Thus came together, and thus fought,
Together, side by side.

A javelin, from an unknown hand,
Came with too sure a dart,
And pierced in thee, poor Cyllarus,
Right to the very heart

He drew the bitter weapon out,
And shuddering all over,
Fell against pale Hylonome,
Whose arms received her lover.

And with her hand she nursed the wound,
Of which he fast was dying,
And hurried mouth to mouth, and tried
To stop his soul from flying.

But when she found it all in vain,
And that her lord was dead,
She uttered something, which the noise
Deafened about her head;

And falling with her wedded heart
On what had murdered his,
Gathered him blindly in her arms,
And smiled a dying kiss