IV

The priests of the gods bound you and left you

All night by the altar stone;

In the dusk of the forested pillars

They bound you and left you alone.

But I, whom the priests were seeking,
Crept in by a hidden way

And watched from the sheltering shadows
The place wherein you lay.

Across the black of the granite

Your white flesh gleamed, and I longed
To sever your bonds and release you;
But the quivering shadows thronged
With myriad fears, and I dared not—
I who had dared too much!

I crouched alone in the shadows,
Supine in the dread gods' clutch.

The white moon fell on your shoulder,
Crept slow to your burnished breast,
And down by curve and hollow,
Where you lay on the altar's crest.
Your dark hair flowed in a torrent

And spread in the cold, white light

That poured through the dome above you

And fell from the temple's height.

While the sharp thongs bit and held you,

Black snakes that twined and bound
Their sinuous length across you-
And never a sigh or sound
Broke out through the temple's silence
Save the chant of the priests outside;
Their low and monotonous chanting
Till the white moon dimmed and died.

357

V

Still through the night I could see you,
A white curve thrown against the dark.

"Cleo!" I whispered.

Hark!

Across the black silence of the temple
I heard a rustling,

The rustling of the sacred trees

Of the grove outside.

I heard the chanting of the priests,
A chant that lifted, fell—

Lifted again, and died.

I heard under all the sullen roar

Of the great sea-waves beating,
Beating, against the shore.

"Cleo!"

Never a sound but the trees
And the seas, but about me

I felt the tumultuous pulsing

Of unseen and powerful forces—
Forces called into being to seek me
And find me,

To hold me and bind me.

"Cleo!"

Never an answer came to my cry.

VI

When the sun touched the templed hilltop

Where the people shouted their praise,

The priests led me out and left me

Full to its level rays.

And they gave me a knife and bade me Pierce deep to your throbbing breast, That your blood might bear in its flowing Expiation for sin confessed.

The knife with its golden glitter
I bore aloft in my hands.

I looked to the east, to the sunrise,
Awaiting the gods' commands.

I turned to the rock that held you
And lifted the jeweled blade

To slay at the dread gods' bidding
Cleo, the gods' handmaid.

Your loved lips smiled as you lay there,
And your dark eyes burned with love.
My hand held the golden knife-blade
A moment ready above,

Then I turned with a shout and flung it
Straight to the heart of a priest!
Bent low to your bonds' undoing-
Bent- and straightened—and ceased.

For the pillars rocked about us,

And the firm hill cleaved to the shock.
The temple crashed to its ruin
Save only the altar rock.

In the harbor the golden galleys

Rose high on the mounting waves,

And the shriek of the gale was muted

By the shriek of the galley slaves

As the strong ships dipped and foundered, And crashed to the tumbled shore,

With the lifting sea thick littered
With the wreckage that it bore.
Down through the trembling valleys
The tall waves towered and swept.
High to the clustered hilltop
The huge waves hungrily crept.
Crept, and lingered, submerging
Temple and town and hill-
And mine was the sin, defying,
In my love the great gods' will.

The fierce gods bound me, and cast me
Naked, alone, and ashamed

Unto the cycles that bore me

From the hill where the sun god flamed,
Down through the dim, lost ages

I have wandered, forsaken, alone.

I have traveled by strange, weird pathways

That only the gods have known.

And I know that the high gods' bidding

Is still for their priest to do;

Not yet the sin's expiation

Not yet is my wandering through.

VII

Aztec priestess or Viking maid-
Strange and wide are the star-paths laid.
Burmese temple or Mitlan hall,

Jungle hut with its wattled wall—

I find you ever; and, finding, lose.

The old gods bind me-not mine to choose!
Seeking and finding, yet holding never;
Still the hate of the gods shall sever
Love from love as the cycles roll
On to their dread and unknown goal.

360

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA CHRONICLE

At night

Beneath the caravan,

With the silken light

VIII

Of the smouldering fire

Warm on the scarlet wheels,

And higher where the painted sides

All color and gold

Bold in the starlight

Trembled and bloomed

Beneath the van

Dream-eyed with slumber,

While purple and scarlet and violet and umber

The live coals glowed and the lithe flames ran,
Flowed to silver of ash,

And paled—

Rose to a tremulous height, and failed

There on your pallet beneath the van

I saw you, and knew you, again.

What were your dreams on that gypsy night?

Did your thoughts take flight

Over the seas and over the ages,

Turning, turning, turning the pages,

Seeking the love that was mine for you?

Was it pain of bewildered seeking,

Old lives speaking,

That clouded your eyes in the silence there?

The starlight gleamed on your ivory breast
And your hair,

And I marked the tremulous quiver

Of

your warm, red mouth as you dreamed.

Ah, Cleo, the old gods held me,

Bound me, barred me!

From the sleeping river

Streamed dim tatters of gray, dank mist,

Shrouding my heart in their grave-cold bands;

And my groping hands

Found only the night-wet grasses.