Fortunate is the man
who has never tasted God's vengeance.
For once the anger of heaven has struck,
that house is shaken forever.
The damnation rises behind each child,
like a wave cresting out of the black northeast,
when the long darkness undersea roars up and bursts,
rumming death upon the wind-whipped sand.
I have seen this gathering sorrow from time long past
loom upon Oedipus'
children.
Generation from generation takes the
compulsive rage of the enemy god.
So lately this last flower of Oedipus' line
drank the sunlight,
but now a passionate word
and a handful of dust
have closed up all its beauty.
What mortal arrogance transcends the wrath of Zeus!
It cannot lull him,
nor the effortless long months of the timeless gods.
For he is young forever,
and his house is the shining day of high Olympus.
All that is
and shall be,
and all the past is his.
No pride on earth
is free of the curse of heaven.
The straying dreams of men may bring them ghosts of joy,
but as they drowse,
the waking embers burn them,
or they walk
with fixed eyes as blind men walk.
But the ancient wisdom speaks for our own time.
Fate works most for woe,
with follies there is show.
Man's little pleasure is the spring
of sorrow.
Love,
unconquerable waste of rich men,
keeper of warm lights and all-night vigil
in the soft face
of a girl.
Sea-wanderer,
forest visitor,
even the pure immortals cannot escape you.
Immortal man in his one day's dusk trembles before your glory.
Surely you swerve upon ruin,
the just man's consenting heart,
as here you have made bright
anger strike between father and son,
and none has conquered
but love.
A girl's glance,
working the will of heaven,
pleasure to her alone who mocks us.
Merciless,
Aphrodite.
All
Danae's beauty
was locked away in a brazen cell
where the sunlight could not come.
A small room,
still as any grave,
enclosed her.
Yet she was a princess too,
and Zeus,
in a rain of gold,
poured love
upon her.
Oh,
child,
child,
no power in wealth or war,
or tough sea-blackened ships,
can prevail against untiring destiny.
And Rhaeson also,
that furious king,
bore the gods' prisoning anger for his pride.
Sealed up
by Dionysus in death stone,
his madness died among echoes.
So at the last,
he learned what dreadful power
his last tongue had mocked,
for he had profaned the revels
and fired the wrath
of the nine implacable sisters
that loved the sound of the flute.
And old men,
tell the half-remembered tale of horror,
done where the dark ledge splits the sea
and a double surf beats on the gray shores.
How a king's new woman,
sick
with hatred for the queen he had imprisoned,
ripped out his two sons' eyes with her bloody hands,
while grinning Ares watched the shuttle plunge four times,
four blind wounds,
crying
for revenge,
crying,
tears and blood mingled.
Piteously born,
those sons whose mother was of heavenly birth,
her father was the god
of the north wind,
and she was cradled by gales.
Embraced with young colts on the glittering hills,
and walked untrammeled in the open light.
But in her marriage,
deathless fate
found means to build a tomb like yours.
For all her joy.