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Already, in this moment before silver Morning, ten were on their way to sea. Already, over mountains and rock rivers— Tawny with high autumn, yet no sun Uprisen had revealed it—Hermes sped And spoke not. At the center of his band, Encircled, he was thoughtful as he flew And flew to where a smoking funnel waited, By a smooth prow whereon the ten would ride, Would ride the waste Atlantic. “They were small, These people, they were pitiful and small,” Said Hermes, half aloud. “Yet not unworthy, Nobles, of our regard.” “They did not guess,” Said Artemis, “how small.” “They could not measure,” Flashed the grey eyes of swift Athene, flying, “Difference. They were lonely. They had nothing Past them to compare. They do not move, These persons, among greater persons still. The knowledge of the difference is all. Mortals with art to measure it are never Pitiful.” “I thought,” mused Aphrodite, Beautiful by night as her own star, Her morning’s mirror, up now in the east, “I thought I met a presence in that musty Stable. Felt a power. Yet all so quiet— Not even the black beetles crept away. Queer, if it was a god—their only god, And none of the fools knew.” “It was your own Mind’s darkness,” Ares muttered; and Hephaestus Laughed—at Aphrodite he could laugh, Now that his limbs were free. “Was there a song? Even a musty music? Where a god is, Surely the air will sound.” Apollo hummed, Remembering the barn dance and the moon. “Did you hear anything to prove a presence?” Artemis, her green robe gilded suddenly By the first beams of sun, was angry still. “She heard but her own hatefulness, that plotted Death.” “I left the living in your hands— Yours, and the mighty angel’s. If you erred, Darling of fawns and virgins, I regret, As you must, any faltering of skill.” “Regret!” The speed of Artemis redoubled As fury filled her. “Lying, laughing word! You poison the whole dawn with it, as then You poisoned—for I know you did—the thorns, The rare leaves I used.” But Hermes cried: “Peace, peace between you, daughters! What is done Is done. There the ship rides that we take— As one we take it, homing to those lands Where sleep is our best portion. Only sleep.” He sighed, and the archangels echoed him: Those three whose sire, unknown to them last night, Had dreamed again—a star above a stable. “Not even sleep,” said Michael. “No, not even Sleep,” droned weary Gabriel. But Raphael’s Sadness was for Artemis to see, And seeing, to have pity on, that no word Henceforth could express. For now the ship Whistled, and the spires above the harbor Glistened, and the hawsers, letting go, Dangled in salt. So easterly they sailed, And sailed; then south a little. And the crew Thought only of the Pillars, of the inland Sea where waves were smaller. But these ten, Prone on the prow, disdained the autumn danger Of storm, of the dark swell. Their daily vision— Common to them all, since reconciled— Was the long night ahead; or over Asia, Centuries upon centuries of flying, Flying where no desert, green with the Word, Blossomed and blessed them. Now as in a dream Never to be redreamed the hills behind them, Huddling that valley, muffled its fine cries Of people trapped in sorrow. Even its glad souls, Silenced, were obscure as drops of dew Hung in the wild Antipodes. No mortal Summer would be given these again: These deities, these angels, who as the dark sea Heaved went on themselves as waves do, Wearily, yet smiling as in a dream.