Thou stars who burnést sore unto our realm,
Why lay such laurels cruel about our ears
And hail misfortunes from the noxious clouds
To break our will? Was it not thou, thou star,
Who shone the speech of Delphi on Aegeus,
Shone likewise on his simple mind when fail'd
To find the veiléd seer's second truth?
In deed, by words son Theseus was wrought
And carried newborn from the grasping surf
In soft-eyed mother Aethra's arms, whose face
Like sprite, which King of Athens knew. The boy
Grew warm and noble, olive branch and fig
Did blossom at his fingertips and fall
When hunger or desire reared their heads.
'Twas time of peace when shone your sister stars
That hang in clouds of gas or nebulae
Far from the grasp of Dodekatheon.
Shall not benevolent stars keep kindling flame?
Young Theseus did sail away, some spark
Of thee caught in the sky when Athens rul'd
By silent father missing roaming son.
Long passed the years when Echo was sole friend:
Repugnant Stars who drool malignéd light
Wax'd strong in endless cloak of mother night,
Bestowing jinx and turn of luck on man
And all his ways. Long pass the years till home
He sails! The slayer of the minotaur!
Victorious and bathed in Pallas rays -
Neglectful to the shade of trecherous sails.
O father, father! Where was thy patience
So long control'd when rul'd the world of men?
Chanced she on silver winds and flew to sea?
Or swallowed by thy famished heart in grief?
Or was't the curse of evil stars that led
Thee to thy end? O, there are none who know.
Pay heed, thou stars, for still Aegeus fled
To coast, and from the stony precipice
Lay ancient eyes on blackest slaver's sails.
On oracle had he but thought again
The pain of murdered progeny be dulled
In falseness and in truth, and he'd have stayed
Still breathing on that windy cliff. And yet
The meddlesome magic of vexing doom
By constellation born caused tears in him
Who had birthed kingdoms into fiery being.
His sandles part from lip of cliff, he falls,
Belov'd of all the winds while through the air,
Until Poseiden's realm at last he finds
The greenest dream he ere had known. The reefs!
The fish! What sweetest realm is kissed by him
Beyond the veil! Those two great fathers meet
At last, both loving boy in ship above
Still goveren'd by the waning stars of hate
But sailing on till morning come.