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Pai-iya to Swi-ya Kwenewesals
MY eyes I will not cover! | |
| I am Pai-iya, stepping free on the goat-hills behind thy village. | |
| Blue shadows and white mists, like flowers, | |
| Lie deep in thy green forests. | |
| Night lingers in thy hair; | 5 |
| Pools of starred dusk are thine eyes. | |
| Thy speech is gray fog, impenetrable, | |
| Shrouding the port of the crimson lure— | |
| (The ships of the trusting one are broken). | |
| Oh, flower-red is thy girdle at morning and evening! | 10 |
| If it were loosened there would be a race of men, | |
| And thou the harbor of a thousand wondering ships. | |
| I have lifted dawn before me as a shield, | |
| Swi-ya Kwen-e-we-sals! | |
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| The Raven pecks beside thy door; | 15 |
| On thy roof the Thunder-Bird claps his wings; | |
| Thy smile darkles across the skies. | |
| Thy smile is death— | |
| My heart is the riven sea beneath. | |
| If thy scarlet girdle were unknotted would it stem the sea of my wound? | 20 |
| Nay! Call not me with the wind blowing through thy garments! | |
| I have bound the mountains to my feet, | |
| Swi-ya Kwen-e-we-sals! | |
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| Last night I saw winged stars in flight | |
| Circling o’er thy dwelling. | 25 |
| They swung at rest on the points of the shore pine— | |
| Torches red-spanning the bay. | |
| My wolves, at my call, | |
| In long gray troops fled up from the forest. | |
| They sphered in guard about me—sleeping on my shield poised on the four world-crags— | 30 |
| As darkened silver cloud-mists wind about the moon. | |
| I have shepherded them into the canyon between us— | |
| (But my eyes I will not cover!) | |
| Wilt thou come, daring, among my fanged flocks, | |
| Swi-ya Kwen-e-we-sals? | 35 |
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| What is this warmth stealing to my height | |
| Like footsteps of a strange desire? | |
| Wave on wave of pink and gold breaks over the white; | |
| The petals open, chirring, | |
| As if they were feathers on the Song-bird’s swelling throat. | 40 |
| My wolves, with heads hanging and fangs covered, slowly moving, moving, | |
| Huddle in the valley like sky-shadows before rain. | |
| Whose steps flow and ripple over the dark moss, | |
| Parting the green walls of cedars, | |
| Blossoming among my mating flocks? | 45 |
| Whence this unraveling of flame blown loose across the air? | |
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| My eyes I will not cover! | |
| I have woven thongs of the mountain mists | |
| And bound me to the morning star. | |
| Between the cliffs of Night and Day, thou emergest!— | 50 |
| Thy sod-brown bosom, the mystical craving eyes above; | |
| The yearning fragrance of thy closed hands, | |
| The wild winds between thy feet, | |
| And the rivers under thy girdle! | |
| I have cast down the great shield of the dawn! | 55 |
| Come, redden its rim with me, | |
| Swi-ya Kwen-e-we-sals! | |
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