The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun

This poem received the nineteenth award of the prize offered by Professor Albert Stanburrough Cook to Yale University for the best unpublished verse, the Committee of Award consisting of Professors C. F. Tucker Brooke, of Yale University, Robert Frost, of Amherst College, and Charles M. Gayley, of the University of California.

"Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny, mooning around as usual! He will never make his way."

Letter of George Keats, 18--

NIGHT falls; the great jars glow against the dark,

Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake,

Writhing eternally in smoky gyres,

Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn

Within them. So the Eastern fisherman

Saw the swart genie rise when the lead seal,

Scribbled with charms, was lifted from the jar;

And -- well, how went the tale? Like this, like this? . . .

No herbage broke the barren flats of land,

No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,

Nor were there any brooks on either hand,

Only the dry, bright sand,

Naked and golden, lay before the seas.

One boat toiled noiselessly along the deep,

The thirsty ripples dying silently

Upon its track. Far out the brown nets sweep,

And night begins to creep

Across the intolerable mirror of the sea.

Twice the nets rise, a-trail with sea-plants brown,

Distorted shells, and rocks green-mossed with slime,

Nought else. The fisher, sick at heart, kneels down;

"Prayer may appease God's frown,"

He thinks, then, kneeling, casts for the third time.

And lo! an earthen jar, bound round with brass,

Lies tangled in the cordage of his net.

About the bright waves gleam like shattered glass,

And where the sea's rim was

The sun dips, flat and red, about to set.

The prow grates on the beach. The fisherman

Stoops, tearing at the cords that bind the seal.

Shall pearls roll out, lustrous and white and wan?

Lapis? carnelian?

Unheard-of stones that make the sick mind reel

With wonder of their beauty? Rubies, then?

Green emeralds, glittering like the eyes of beasts?

Poisonous opals, good to madden men?

Gold bezants, ten and ten?

Hard, regal diamonds, like kingly feasts?

He tugged; the seal gave way. A little smoke

Curled like a feather in the darkening sky.

A blinding gush of fire burst, flamed, and broke.

A voice like a wind spoke.

Armored with light, and turbaned terribly,

A genie tramped the round earth underfoot;

His head sought out the stars, his cupped right hand

Made half the sky one darkness. He was mute.

The sun, a ripened fruit,

Drooped lower. Scarlet eddied o'er the sand.

The genie spoke: "O miserable one!

Thy prize awaits thee; come, and hug it close!

A noble crown thy draggled nets have won

For this that thou hast done.

Blessed are fools! A gift remains for those!"

His hand sought out his sword, and lightnings flared

Across the sky in one great bloom of fire.

Poised like a toppling mountain, it hung bared;

Suns that were jewels glared

Along its hilt. The air burnt like a pyre.

Once more the genie spoke: "Something I owe

To thee, thou fool, thou fool. Come, canst thou sing?

Yea? Sing then; if thy song be brave, then go

Free and released -- or no!

Find first some task, some overmastering thing

I cannot do, and find it speedily,

For if thou dost not thou shalt surely die!"

The sword whirled back. The fisherman uprose,

And if at first his voice was weak with fear

And his limbs trembled, it was but a doze,

And at the high song's close

He stood up straight. His voice rang loud and clear.

                The Song.

Last night the quays were lighted;

Cressets of smoking pine

Glared o'er the roaring mariners

That drink the yellow wine.

Their song rolled to the rafters,

It struck the high stars pale,

Such worth was in their discourse,

Such wonder in their tale.

Blue borage filled the clinking cups,

The murky night grew wan,

Till one rose, crowned with laurel-leaves,

That was an outland man.

"Come, let us drink to war!" said he,

"The torch of the sacked town!

The swan's-bath and the wolf-ships,

And Harald of renown!

"Yea, while the milk was on his lips,

Before the day was born,

He took the Almayne Kaiser's head

To be his drinking-horn!

"Yea, while the down was on his chin,

Or yet his beard was grown,

He broke the gates of Micklegarth,

And stole the lion-throne!

"Drink to Harald, king of the world,

Lord of the tongue and the troth!

To the bellowing horns of Ostfriesland,

And the trumpets of the Goth!"

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,

The drink-horns crashed and rang,

And all their talk was a clangor of war,

As swords together sang!

But dimly, through the deep night,

Where stars like flowers shone,

A passionate shape came gliding --

I saw one thing alone.

I only saw my young love

Shining against the dark,

The whiteness of her raiment,

The head that bent to hark.

I only saw my young love,

Like flowers in the sun --

Her hands like waxen petals,

Where yawning poppies run.

I only felt there, chrysmal,

Against my cheek her breath,

Though all the winds were baying,

And the sky bright with Death.

Red sparks whirled up the chimney,

A hungry flaught of flame,

And a lean man from Greece arose;

Thrasyllos was his name.

"I praise all noble wines!" he cried,

"Green robes of tissue fine,

Peacocks and apes and ivory,

And Homer's sea-loud line,

"Statues and rings and carven gems,

And the wise crawling sea;

But most of all the crowns of kings,

The rule they wield thereby!

"Power, fired power, blank and bright!

A fit hilt for the hand!

The one good sword for a freeman,

While yet the cold stars stand!"

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,

The air was thick with wine.

I only knew her deep eyes,

And felt her hand in mine.

Softly as quiet water,

One finger touched my cheek;

Her face like gracious moonlight --

I might not move nor speak.

I only saw that beauty,

I only felt that form

There, in the silken darkness --

God wot my heart was warm!

Their shouts rolled to the rafters,

Another chief began;

His slit lips showed him for a Hun;

He was an evil man.

"Sing to the joys of women!" he yelled,

"The hot delicious tents,

The soft couch, and the white limbs;

The air a steam of scents!"

His eyes gleamed, and he wet his lips,

The rafters shook with cheers,

As he sang of woman, who is man's slave

For all unhonored years.

"Whether the wanton laughs amain,

With one white shoulder bare,

Or in a sacked room you unbind

Some crouching maiden's hair;

"This is the only good for man,

Like spices of the South --

To see the glimmering body laid

As pasture to his mouth!

"To leave no lees within the cup,

To see and take and rend;

To lap a girl's limbs up like wine,

And laugh, knowing the end!"

Only, like low, still breathing,

I heard one voice, one word;

And hot speech poured upon my lips,

As my hands held a sword.

"Fools, thrice fools of lust!" I cried,

"Your eyes are blind to see

Eternal beauty, moving far,

More glorious than horns of war!

But though my eyes were one blind scar,

That sight is shown to me!

"You nuzzle at the ivory side,

You clasp the golden head;

Fools, fools, who chatter and sing,

You have taken the sign of a terrible thing,

You have drunk down God with your beeswing,

And broken the saints for bread!

"For God moves darkly,

In silence and in storm;

But in the body of woman

He shows one burning form.

"For God moves blindly,

In darkness and in dread;

But in the body of woman

He raises up the dead.

"Gracile and straight as birches,

Swift as the questing birds,

They fill true-lovers' drink-horns up,

Who speak not, having no words.

"Love is not delicate toying,

A slim and shimmering mesh;

It is two souls wrenched into one,

Two bodies made one flesh.

"Lust is a sprightly servant,

Gallant where wines are poured;

Love is a bitter master,

Love is an iron lord.

"Satin ease of the body,

Fattened sloth of the hands,

These and their like he will not send,

Only immortal fires to rend --

And the world's end is your journey's end,

And your stream chokes in the sands.

"Pleached calms shall not await you,

Peace you shall never find;

Nought but the living moorland

Scourged naked by the wind.

"Nought but the living moorland,

And your love's hand in yours;

The strength more sure than surety,

The mercy that endures.

"Then, though they give you to be burned,

And slay you like a stoat,

You have found the world's heart in the turn of a cheek,

Heaven in the lift of a throat.

"Although they break you on the wheel,

That stood so straight in the sun,

Behind you the trumpets split the sky,

Where the lost and furious fight goes by --

And God, our God, will have victory

When the red day is done!"

Their mirth rolled to the rafters,

They bellowed lechery;

Light as a drifting feather

My love slipped from my knee.

Within, the lights were yellow

In drowsy rooms and warm;

Without, the stabbing lightning

Shattered across the storm.

Within, the great logs crackled,

The drink-horns emptied soon;

Without, the black cloaks of the clouds

Strangled the waning moon.

My love crossed o'er the threshold --

God! but the night was murk!

I set myself against the cold,

And left them to their work.

Their shouts rolled to the rafters;

A bitterer way was mine,

And I left them in the tavern,

Drinking the yellow wine!

The last faint echoes rang along the plains,

Died, and were gone. The genie spoke: "Thy song

Serves well enough -- but yet thy task remains;

Many and rending pains

Shall torture him who dares delay too long!"

His brown face hardened to a leaden mask.

A bitter brine crusted the fisher's cheek --

"Almighty God, one thing alone I ask,

Show me a task, a task!"

The hard cup of the sky shone, gemmed and bleak.

"O love, whom I have sought by devious ways;

O hidden beauty, naked as a star;

You whose bright hair has burned across my days,

Making them lamps of praise;

O dawn-wind, breathing of Arabia!

"You have I served. Now fire has parched the vine,

And Death is on the singers and the song.

No longer are there lips to cling to mine,

And the heart wearies of wine,

And I am sick, for my desire is long.

"O love, soft-moving, delicate and tender!

In her gold house the pipe calls querulously,

They cloud with thin green silks her body slender,

They talk to her and tend her;

Come, piteous, gentle love, and set me free!"

He ceased -- and, slowly rising o'er the deep,

A faint song chimed, grew clearer, till at last

A golden horn of light began to creep

Where the dumb ripples sweep,

Making the sea one splendor where it passed.

A golden boat! The bright oars rested soon,

And the prow met the sand. The purple veils

Misting the cabin fell. Fair as the moon

When the morning comes too soon,

And all the air is silver in the dales,

A gold-robed princess stepped upon the beach.

The fisher knelt and kissed her garment's hem,

And then her lips, and strove at last for speech.

The waters lapped the reach.

"Here thy strength breaks, thy might is nought to stem!"

He cried at last. Speech shook him like a flame:

"Yea, though thou plucked the stars from out the sky,

Each lovely one would be a withered shame --

Each thou couldst find or name --

To this fire-hearted beauty!" Wearily

The genie heard. A slow smile came like dawn

Over his face. "Thy task is done!" he said.

A whirlwind roared, smoke shattered, he was gone;

And, like a sudden horn,

The moon shone clear, no longer smoked and red.

They passed into the boat. The gold oars beat

Loudly, then fainter, fainter, till at last

Only the quiet waters barely moved

Along the whispering sand -- till all the vast

Expanse of sea began to shake with heat,

And morning brought soft airs, by sailors loved.

And after? . . . Well . . .

                      The shop-bell clangs! Who comes?

Quinine -- I pour the little bitter grains

Out upon blue, glazed squares of paper. So.

And all the dusk I shall sit here alone,

With many powers in my hands -- ah, see

How the blurred labels run on the old jars!

Opium -- and a cruel and sleepy scent,

The harsh taste of white poppies; India --

The writhing woods a-crawl with monstrous life,

Save where the deodars are set like spears,

And a calm pool is mirrored ebony;

Opium -- brown and warm and slender-breasted

She rises, shaking off the cool black water,

And twisting up her hair, that ripples down,

A torrent of black water, to her feet;

How the drops sparkle in the moonlight! Once

I made a rhyme about it, singing softly:

Over Damascus every star

Keeps his unchanging course and cold,

The dark weighs like an iron bar,

The intense and pallid night is old,

Dim the moon's scimitar.

Still the lamps blaze within those halls,

Where poppies heap the marble vats

For girls to tread; the thick air palls;

And shadows hang like evil bats

About the scented walls.

The girls are many, and they sing;

Their white feet fall like flakes of snow,

Making a ceaseless murmuring --

Whispers of love, dead long ago,

And dear, forgotten Spring.

One alone sings not. Tiredly

She sees the white blooms crushed, and smells

The heavy scent. They chatter: "See!

White Zira thinks of nothing else

But the morn's jollity --

"Then Haroun takes her!" But she dreams,

Unhearing, of a certain field

Of poppies, cut by many streams,

Like lines across a round Turk shield,

Where now the hot sun gleams.

The field whereon they walked that day,

And splendor filled her body up,

And his; and then the trampled clay,

And slow smoke climbing the sky's cup

From where the village lay.

And after -- much ache of the wrists,

Where the cords irked her -- till she came,

The price of many amethysts,

Hither. And now the ultimate shame

Blew trumpet in the lists.

And so she trod the poppies there,

Remembering other poppies, too,

And did not seem to see or care.

Without, the first gray drops of dew

Sweetened the trembling air.

She trod the poppies. Hours passed

Until she slept at length -- and Time

Dragged his slow sickle. When at last

She woke, the moon shone, bright as rime,

And night's tide rolled on fast.

She moaned once, knowing everything;

Then, bitterer than death, she found

The soft handmaidens, in a ring,

Come to anoint her, all around,

That she might please the king.

Opium -- and the odor dies away,

Leaving the air yet heavy -- cassia -- myrrh --

Bitter and splendid. See, the poisons come,

Trooping in squat green vials, blazoned red

With grinning skulls: strychnine, a pallid dust

Of tiny grains, like bones ground fine; and next

The muddy green of arsenic, all livid,

Likest the face of one long dead -- they creep

Along the dusty shelf like deadly beetles,

Whose fangs are carved with runnels, that the blood

May run down easily to the blind mouth

That snaps and gapes; and high above them there,

My master's pride, a cobwebbed, yellow pot

Of honey from Mount Hybla. Do the bees

Still moan among the low sweet purple clover,

Endlessly many? Still in deep-hushed woods,

When the incredible silver of the moon

Comes like a living wind through sleep-bowed branches,

Still steal dark shapes from the enchanted glens,

Which yet are purple with high dreams, and still

Fronting that quiet and eternal shield

Which is much more than Peace, does there still stand

One sharp black shadow -- and the short, smooth horns

Are clear against that disk?

                      O great Diana!

I, I have praised thee, yet I do not know

What moves my mind so strangely, save that once

I lay all night upon a thymy hill,

And watched the slow clouds pass like heaped-up foam

Across blue marble, till at last no speck

Blotted the clear expanse, and the full moon

Rose in much light, and all night long I saw

Her ordered progress, till, in midmost heaven,

There came a terrible silence, and the mice

Crept to their holes, the crickets did not chirp,

All the small night-sounds stopped -- and clear pure light

Rippled like silk over the universe,

Most cold and bleak; and yet my heart beat fast,

Waiting until the stillness broke. I know not

For what I waited -- something very great --

I dared not look up to the sky for fear

A brittle crackling should clash suddenly

Against the quiet, and a black line creep

Across the sky, and widen like a mouth,

Until the broken heavens streamed apart,

Like torn lost banners, and the immortal fires,

Roaring like lions, asked their meat from God.

I lay there, a black blot upon a shield

Of quivering, watery whiteness. The hush held

Until I staggered up and cried aloud,

And then it seemed that something far too great

For knowledge, and illimitable as God,

Rent the dark sky like lightning, and I fell,

And, falling, heard a wild and rushing wind

Of music, and saw lights that blinded me

With white, impenetrable swords, and felt

A pressure of soft hands upon my lips,

Upon my eyelids -- and since then I cough

At times, and have strange thoughts about the stars,

That some day -- some day --

                      Come, I must be quick!

My master will be back soon. Let me light

Thin blue Arabian pastilles, and sit

Like a dead god incensed by chanting priests,

And watch the pungent smoke wreathe up and up,

Until he comes -- though he may rage because

They cost good money. Then I shall walk home

Over the moor. Already the moon climbs

Above the world's edge. By the time he comes

She will be fully risen. -- There's his step!

Stephen Vincent Benet

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