Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/277

ALECTRYON In lurid caverns of the distant isle,

Unboding, and unheeded in his home,

Save with a scornful jest. Till now the crown

Of Artemis shone at her topmost height:

Then rose the impassioned lovers, with rapt eyes

Fixed each on each, and passed beyond the hall,

Through curtains of that chamber whence all winds

Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth;

At whose dim vestibule Alectryôn

Disposed him, mindful of his master's word;

But Erôs, heavy-eyed, long since had slept,

Deep-muffled in the softness of his plumes.

And all was silence in the House of Fire.

Only Alectryôn, through brazen bars,

Watched the blue East for Eôs, she whose torch

Should warn him of the coming of the Sun.

Even thus he kept his vigils; but, ere half

Her silvery downward path the Huntress knew,

His senses by that rich immortal food

Grew numbed with languor. Then the shadowy hall's

Deep columns glimmered, interblent with dreams,—

Thick forests, running waters, darkling caves

Of Thrace; and half in thought he grasped the bow;

Hunted once more within his native wilds,

Cheering the hounds; until before his eyes

The drapery of all nearer pictures fell,

And his limbs drooped. Whereat the imp of Sleep,

Hypnos, who hid him at the outer gate,

Slid in with silken-sandalled feet, and laid

A subtle finger on his lids. And so,

Crouched at the warder-post, Alectryôn slept.

Meanwhile the God and Goddess, recking nought

Of evil, trusting to the faithful boy,

Sank satiate in the calm of trancèd rest.

And past the sleeping warder, deep within 247