The Slave of Apollo

“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 —Will be free!

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!