Bear me to Dictaeus,

Splash your great pinesOn our rocks.Hurl your green over us—Cover us with your pools of fir.

that merges to gold again,as white as the white rainthat beats throughthe half-opened flowersof the great flower tuftsthick on the black limbsof an Illyrian apple bough.Can honey distill such fragranceas your bright hair-for your face is as fair as rain,yet as rain that lies clearon white honey-comb,lends radiance to the white wax,so your hair on…

root tangled in sand,sea-iris, brittle flower,one petal like a shellis broken,and you print a shadowlike a thin twig.Fortunate one,scented and stinging,rigid myrrh-bud,camphor-flower,sweet and salt—you are windin our nostrils.IIDo the murex-fishersdrench you as they pass?Do your roots drag up colourfrom the sand?Have they slipped gold under you—rivets of gold?Band of iris-flowersabove the waves,you are painted blue,painted…

the honey-seeking, golden-banded,the yellow swarmwas not more fleet than I,(spare us from loveliness)and I fell prostratecrying:you have flayed uswith your blossoms,spare us the beautyof fruit-trees.The honey-seekingpaused not,the air thundered their song,and I alone was prostrate.O rough hewngod of the orchard,I bring you an offering–do you, alone unbeautiful,son of the god,spare us from loveliness:these fallen hazel-nuts,stripped…

as bright Aldeboran or Sirius,nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War;stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight;yours is not gracious as the Pleiads arenor as Orion’s sapphires, luminous;yet disenchanted, cold, imperious face,when all the others blighted, reel and fall,your star, steel-set, keeps lone and frigid trystto freighted ships, baffled in wind and…

cycle of seed-timeand of sun and rain;Demeter in the grass,I multiply,renew and blessBacchus in the vine;I hold the law,I keep the mysteries true,the first of theseto name the living, dead;I am the wine and bread.I keep the law,I hold the mysteries true,I am the vine,the branches, youand you.