Her Vision in the Wood

    At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood，

    Too old for a man‘s love I stood in rage

    Imagining men. Imagining that I could

    A greater with a lesser pang assuage

    Or but to find if withered vein ran blood，

    I tore my body that its wine might cover

    Whatever could recall the lip of lover.

    And after that I held my fingers up，

    Stared at the wine-dark nail， or dark that ran

    Down every withered finger from the top；

    But the dark changed to red， and torches shone，

    And deafening music shook the leaves； a troop

    Shouldered a litter with a wounded man，

    Or smote upon the string and to the sound

    Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.

    All stately women moving to a song

    With loosened hair or foreheads grief-distraught，

    It seemed a Quattrocento painter‘s throng，

    A thoughtless image of Mantegna‘s thought—

    Why should they think that are for ever young？

    Till suddenly in grief‘s contagion caught，

    I stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast

    And sang my malediction with the rest.

    That thing all blood and mire， that beast-torn wreck，

    Half turned and fixed a glazing eye on mine，

    And， though love‘s bitter-sweet had all come back，

    Those bodies from a picture or a coin

    Nor saw my body fall nor heard it shriek，

    Nor knew， drunken with singing as with wine，

    That they had brought no fabulous symbol there

    But my heart‘s victim and its torturer.