Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/262

 That lacks not and is wearied with much loss. Meantime the purple inward of the house Was softened with all grace of scent and sound In ear and nostril perfecting my praise; Faint grape-flowers and cloven honey-cake And the just grain with dues of the shed salt Made me content: yet my hand loosened not Its gripe upon your harvest all year long. While I, thus woman-muffled in wan flesh And waste externals of a perished face, Preserved the levels of my wrath and love Patiently ruled; and with soft offices Cooled the sharp noons and busied the warm nights In care of this my choice, this child my choice, Triptolemus, the king’s selected son: That this fair yearlong body, which hath grown Strong with strange milk upon the mortal lip And nerved with half a god, might so increase Outside the bulk and the bare scope of man: And waxen over large to hold within Base breath of yours and this impoverished air, I might exalt him past the flame of stars, The limit and walled reach of the great world. Therefore my breast made common to his mouth Immortal savours, and the taste whereat Twice their hard life strains out the coloured veins And twice its brain confirms the narrow shell. Also at night, unwinding cloth from cloth