“HOW shall I rid myself from thee,
Apollo? Give me leave to be
No more than flower, or wind, or thought,
—Only a fragrant memory, nought,
Or anything that’s free:
“Give me—O pitying—some power
To cease; make me a gentle shower;
A hidden fount that murmureth
In some sweet glimmer all apart
From sounds of living: give me death!
Or loose me for your love of me;
My bosom faileth and my heart
No more a prisoner will be
Shall I not cry to ye aloud
O clouds! My spirit was a cloud
Like one of you,—was free, I say,
To loiter o’er the tremulous lakes
Loving, to cling upon the wane
Of every fair thing that forsakes
The light and luxury of day;
To bear me over hill and plain
Upon the winds’ unfooted way:
Ah, I was fearless then and pure;
And my sight touched all things obscure
Beneath dim masks of change or sleep:
And read the tender meanings writ
For full new heavens down in deep
Horizons, over which stood knit
The storms’ dark brows; I saw what cleaves
In the far corners of sun-smiles,
And I could send my breath for miles
Among the flowers and the leaves.
O bosom of my mother Heaven,
Was not I purer than the dew?
Was not my spirit of the leaven
Of your own high eternal blue
Unspotted by one part of earth?
O, wherefore this dull flesh that wraps
My sense in shame,—O, why this birth
Among hard human sights and mirth!
Hear now, and draw me back to you.
Call to me through the silent gaps
In some great tempest cloud above,
Steal me when, gasping in the laps
Of these that sicken me of love,
I lie and think of my lost bliss:
O can you not in one long kiss
Absorb my spirit back to you?
But thou, Apollo, who prevailest!
Hast thou made me thine envy? choosing,
Out of all creatures, me the frailest;
Me the most piteous, for the loosing
Of thy swift amorous looks like hounds
That hunt my soul—heavy and rife
With bodiless delights and sounds,
And knowledge of a goodlier life?
—O, not until some fate shall darken
This soul with death, shall any scorn
Or hate of heaven make me mute:
Rather, through hot days, will I hearken
For quick breaths panting in pursuit,
And the swift feet of some sweet fawn
Crashing among the fallen fruit:
And him—making my whole blood blush—
I will all languishing beseech,—
Crush me, O God, as thou wouldst crush
Some fire-fed fruit, some fallen peach,
Some swollen skin of purple wine;
Care not to spare me,—nor refuse me;
Take me, to use me or abuse me,
And slay me taking me for thine!—
So—till he seize me with a shout,
Tear me, and sear me with his breath;
Yea, till he tread my heart quite out,
And give me Death!
And if not Death!—
O all the night I shall be free
To steep me and to stifle me
In dew, and cool dew-dropping hair,
In every shadowy haunt and lair
Where most forgetfulness may be;
And, all on flame, my soul shall flare
Into the chillest of the dark,
And there be quenchéd, spark by spark.
To the last faintest spark of me.
I will be wasted as a spoil
On all things of the woods and winds;
Earned with no eagerness or toil
I will be for the first who finds—
A revel for mad zephyr lips,
A soft eternity of sips:
I will no sweet of mine detain;
But wholly be to them a prey,
Used lavishly or cast away
For the whole rout of them to drain.
Or I will give myself to make
Sport for the green gods of the lake;
—All fierce are they with foamy breath,
And rainbow eyes, and watery souls,
Quaint things, half deity, half snake;
—O, I shall lay me in the shoals
Of waves: or any way get Death!—
So I shall rid myself from thee,
Apollo!—So at length be free!