Classic Poem

The Aged Penelope and a Handmaiden

A H me, day follows day, and Spring returns,
Never to bring my gladness with the leaves.
Can she have lost her youth along with me?
Or are these barren rocks more loath to hail
Her coming than of old? Ah, child, ah, maid! —
I see Spring on thy forehead, and about
The young rose of thy mouth: so there is Spring
Still, sometimes. Lead me forth, Arsinoi.

So hath the Sea smiled on me, vacantly,
For centuries ... nay, nay, for many days;
The aged speak thus. Yet, thou knowest well,
All thine own life-time I have looked on it,
Counting the years as sails that creep apace,
Always to sink; and the Sea grows not old.
Thy master tarries long away from me.
Yet men are ever so, girl, — stanch in war,
Faithful to chance, forever led away
By some strange thirst of wandering; always fain
To waste their lives in seeking farther things,
Until, the while a shadow beckons them,
The true Life softly slips her fingers out
From their loose clasp, and leaves them to a dream.
It is not so with my Telemachus:
Wise ruler he, even in his father's stead,
Ay, faithful son to me, and kingly man. ...
A man, in sooth! — no more a little lad
To hearken here, with lifted eyes alight,
To stories of his father's deeds in war;
No more a youth. I am grown old indeed,
Old, old; and haply he, thine absent King,
Returning some far day, would know me not, —
So hath long watching changed me, — but would say
To some one of my maidens, thee, perchance,
" What wrinkled shade is this ye wait upon?"
And hear thee say, " The Queen, Penelope."
Yet hath thy master found eternal youth?
So seemed it once, that ever-wondrous day!
Ah, in what guise he came before me first,
Infirm, brow-bent, led by the swineherd here;
A beggar, mark! And I, whose straining eyes
Had watched for twenty years, I knew him not.
Bethink thee, all those mornings, year on year,
How I had watched the cold eyes of the Sea
For any promise, — weaving the day fair
With thread of hope, an endless web to weave
And ravel into shreds again, with tears,
And weave once more. Once more the sun would rise
Bright as a far-off sail, — nay, not so bright,
Until the Sea that hateth all, even me,
Stared mine eyes dim. And so I knew him not.

Bethink thee, maid: a sovereign's right is his,
The man's will ever his, to come and go
And wander whither hope may call afar,
For rumor of great deeds doth follow him
As the foam whitens in his good ship's wake.
Bethink thee, when thou weavest with the maids,
The man's it is to change the face o' the world;
The woman's part to listen and to wait.

Who is it stirreth on the hillside there?
(Would he but come again in any wise,
Or King or beggar, I should know him now.)
Were it a stranger, — hasten hither, girl, —
He must have shelter for thy master's sake;
Bid him come hither. No one, sayest thou?
The shadow of a cloud: mine eyes are dim,
But look abroad again, I saw a sail —
A sail far out to sea there: dost not thou?
Nay, strain thine eyes, far out. Yet in good sooth,
I know not whether it be far or near,
I only saw the white in yonder blue.
What sayest thou? A sea-bird, flying low?
A sea-bird. ... But look forth, Arsinoi,
Look forth once more for me: thine eyes are young,
The blue is endless. ...
Dost thou see no sail?