Prose Poems

Richard Aldington

Thanatos

Myrrhine, we have often sung of the sharp end of life, often mocked at death in the midst of the fierce ecstasy of our embraces.

We have heard of this savage and mysterious god from the stately words of Homer; and we also have mourned for beautiful Bion.

We have seen death graven in bronze as a drowsy youth scattering poppies from his delicate hands.

And all this seemed very quiet and lovely—a tender farewell to the sweet lips of life.

But when I saw for the first time the pallid shrunken face of a dead girl—and that girl our lover Kleone—my veins shrank with terror and I feared through all my trembling limbs.

Let others sing gaily or yearningly of death and deck this sombre lord with garlands; we are too timid, too frail-in-hope for that.

Others may dream of the gold islands of the happy dead or of the calm spirits among the phantom flowers in the meadows beyond Acheron;

We can only turn aside, holding heart to trembling heart, and number the dividing moments with close kisses, counting all time lost that is not golden with love....

Drink, my beloved; drink from this wide silver cup; drink as the Maenads in the pine-crowned orgy of Iacchus! Drink, drink! And as our bodies meet tear the garland from my brow and the thin veil from my breasts.

Those who are about to die fear only chastity and an empty wine-cup.

Hermes-of-the-Dead

Myrrhine, when I was a girl in white Alexandria, I listened to the talk of poets, and of philosophers who came to my house to buy (as they said) “delicious remorse for five mines.”

From them, had I been another Aspasia, I might have learned wisdom; but from poets I learned only to love and to know beauty, and from the philosophers I learned nothing except that “Death is not to be feared.” And this I learned no better than they, for we are all cowards at the end.

But since I must go from you; since already the winged sandals of Kyllenian Hermes are rustling the Olympian air for me; since in your purse now lies the silver obol I must drop in the grim ferry-man’s hand—listen a little to me.

When I am but a cupful of grey dust in a tall, narrow-throated stone vase; when the mouth that sang you and the lips that kissed you are withered and silent; when the hands that touched you have crumbled in the funeral flames; when the eyes that lighted at your beauty are quenched; when the ears that loved your beautiful voice are vanished; when the frail spirit that leaped and mingled with your spirit, like two flames, is a tenuous phantom which scarcely “is”; when life has left me: then you must live, live for yourself, but for me also.

For my sake Eos in a cloudless sky gliding from the many-isled sea must be more tender and more thrilling; for my sake the scent of ripe apples in the dim-gold autumn must be keener and more odorous; for my sake the music of Pindar and Theocritus must be more stately, more flower-like, more melancholy sweet; for my sake the ecstasy of love must be sharper, wilder; for my sake you must be more beautiful, more alert, more delicate.

I shall be loveless in a scentless land, where there is no change of light. I shall be desolate and alone and the memory of the dear words of poets will fade from me. But if you love and live fully and serve beauty for my sake, then some slight glow will lighten the dead sky and there will be some faint perfume for me in the chill blossoms of asphodel.

Now loose my hand, for Hermes-of-the-Dead clasps the other.