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 lesser² pang³ assuage⁴

    Or but to find if withered⁵ vein⁶ 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 deafening⁷ music shook the leaves； a troop

    Shouldered a litter with a wounded man，

    Or smote⁸ 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 throng⁹，

    A thoughtless image of Mantegna‘s thought—

    Why should they think that are for ever young？

    Till suddenly in grief‘s contagion¹⁰ caught，

    I stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast

    And sang my malediction¹¹ with the rest.

    That thing all blood and mire¹²， that beast-torn wreck¹³，

    Half turned and fixed¹⁴ a glazing¹⁵ 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 shriek¹⁶，

    Nor knew， drunken with singing as with wine，

    That they had brought no fabulous¹⁷ symbol there

    But my heart‘s victim and its torturer.