C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Mary Ashley Townsend (1836–1901)
The Bather
W
And cast it down on the insensate turf;
Then copse and cove and deep-secluded vale
She scrutinized with keen though timid eyes,
And stood with ear intent to catch each stir
Of leaf or twig or bird-wing rustling there.
Her startled heart beat quicker even to hear
The wild bee woo the blossom with a hymn,
Or hidden insect break its lance of sound
Against the obdurate silence. Then she smiled,
At her own fears amused, and knew herself
God’s only image by that hidden shore;
Out from its bonds her wondrous hair she loosed,—
Hair glittering like spun glass, and bright as though
Shot full of golden arrows. Down below
Her supple waist the soft and shimmering coils
Rolled in their bright abundance, goldener
Than was the golden wonder Jason sought.
A moment fluttered ’mid the shining threads,
As with a dexterous touch she higher laid
The gleaming tresses on her shapely head,
Beyond the reach of rudely amorous waves.
Then from her throat her light robe she unclasped,
And dropped it downward with a blush that rose
The higher as the garment lower fell.
And paused upon the brink of that blue lake:
A sight too fair for either gods or men;
An Eve untempted in her Paradise.
The waters into which her young eyes looked
Gave back her image with so true a truth,
She blushed to look; but blushing looked again,
As maidens to their mirrors oft return
With bashful boldness, once again to gaze
Upon the crystal page that renders back
Themselves unto themselves, until their eyes
Confess their love for their own loveliness.
With sudden blossoming, a fresh red rose,
She hid an instant in her dimpled hands;
Then met her pink palms up above her head,
And whelmed her white shape in the welcoming wave.
And with their lucent raiment robed her form;
And as her hesitating bosom sunk
To the caresses of bewildered waves,
The foamy pearls from their own foreheads gave
For her fair brow, and showered in her hair
The evanescent diamonds of the deep.
Her loveliness half hidden, half revealed,
An Undine with a soul, she plunged and rose,
Whilst the white graces of her rounded arms
She braided with the blue of wandering waves,
And saw the shoulders of the billows yield
Before the even strokes of her small hands,
And laughed to see, and held her crimson mouth
Above the crest of each advancing surge
Like a red blossom pendent o’er a pool;
Till, done with the invigorating play,
Once more she gained the bank, and once again
Saw her twin image in the waters born.
To strange perfection. Never statue wrought
By cunning art to fullness of all grace,
And kissed to life by love, could fairer seem
Than she who stood upon that grassy slope
So fresh, so human, so immaculate!
The nun-like winds stole with a saintly step,
And dried the bright drops from her panting form,
As she with hurried hands once more let down
The golden drapery of her glorious hair,
That fell about her like some royal cloak
Dropped from the sunset’s rare and radiant loom.