Clytie
Clytie was not always a sunflower, turning on her stem to watch the journeying sun. Long ago she was a water nymph and lived in a cave at the bottom of the sea. The walls of the cave were covered with pearls and lovely pink sea shells. The floor was made of amber, with soft, mossy cushions. On each side of the cave opening was a forest of coral and sea fans. Behind the cave were Clytie's gardens. Here she spent long hours taking care of her sea anemones, her star lilies, or in planting rare kinds of seaweed. Clytie kept her favorite horses in the garden grotto. These were the swift-darting goldfish and the slow moving turtles.
For a long time she was very happy and contented. The sea nymphs loved Clytie, and wove for her dresses of the softest of green sea lace. They told her all of their best stories.
One day they took her to the mermaid's rock to hear the mermaid sing. Clytie liked one song best of all. It told of a glorious light which shone on the top of the water. After Clytie heard this song, she could think of nothing else, but longed day and night to see the wonderful light. But no ocean nymph dared take her to it, and she grew very unhappy.
Soon she neglected her garden and all her sea creatures. In vain the other nymphs begged her to forget the enchanting light. They told her no sea nymph had ever seen it, or ever could hope to see it. But Clytie would not listen, and to escape them she spent more and more of her time in her shell carriage, riding far away from her cave. In this way, she could dream, undisturbed, of the glorious light which the mermaid called the "sun".
Now it happened that late one summer night, when the sea was warm and the turtles were going very slowly, Clytie fell asleep. Unguided, the turtles went on and on and up and up, through the green waters, until they came out at last close to a wooded island. As the waves dashed the carriage against the shore, Clytie awoke.
Trembling and filled with wonder, she climbed out of the shell and sat down upon a rock. It was early dawn, and the waking world was very beautiful. Clytie had never seen the trees and the flowers. She had never heard the birds chirping, or the forest wind rustling through the leaves. She had never smelled the fragrance of the meadows, or seen the morning dew upon the grass. She was dazed by all these wonders, and thought she must be dreaming, but soon she forgot all about them, for the eastern sky blazed suddenly with light. Great purple curtains were lifted, and slowly a great ball of dazzling fire appeared, blinding her eyes with its beauty. She held her breath and stretched out her arms toward it, for she knew at once that this was the glorious light she had dreamed about and longed for. This was the sun. In the midst of the light was a golden chariot, drawn by four fiery steeds, and in the chariot sat a wonderful, smiling King, with seven rays of light playing around his crown. As the steeds mounted higher and higher in their path, the birds began to sing, the plants opened their buds, and even the old sea looked happy.
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Clytie sat all day upon the rock, her eyes fixed upon the sun with a great love and longing in her heart. She wept when the chariot disappeared in the West and darkness came over the earth. The next day from sunrise to sunset she gazed upon the sun, and at night she refused to go home. For nine days and nights she sat with her golden hair unbound, tasting neither food nor drink, only longing more and more for the smile of the glorious King. She called to him and stretched out her arms, yet she had no hope that he would ever notice her or know of her great love.
On the tenth morning, when she leaned over the water, she was amazed, for instead of her own face, a beautiful flower looked up at her from the sea. Her yellow hair had become golden petals, her green dress had turned into leaves and stems, and her little feet had become roots which fastened her to the ground. Clytie had become a small image of the sun.
The next morning, when she lifted her face to the beautiful light, it was so radiant with happiness that the great King himself seemed to smile back kindly at the happy flower. And so, Clytie began her life upon the earth, and she became the mother of a large family of flowers with bright faces like her own. Her children are called sunflowers, and you may find them scattered all over the country, even in the dry and dusty places where other flowers will not grow. And if you care to, you may find out for yourselves whether or not it is true that all the sunflowers in the world turn upon their stalks, from sunrise to sunset, so that they may always keep their faces toward the sun.
Songs Of The Sea Children
I
These are the little songs
The wild sea children sang,
When the first gold arch of light
From rim to zenith sprang;
When all the glad clean joys
Of being came to birth,
Out of the darkling womb
Of the morning of the earth.
And these are the lyric songs
The earthborn children sing,
When wild-wood laughter throngs
The shy bird-throats of spring;
When there's not a joy of the heart
But flies like a flag unfurled,
And the swelling buds bring back
The April of the world.
These are the April songs
The vernal children sing,
When the yellow pollen dust
Floats on the stream in spring;
When the swelling streams go down
Through the deep and grassy floors,
And the gold-fish and the turtle
Bask at their river doors.
And these are the innocent songs
The forest children sing,
When the whippoorwill's unrest
Is a pulse in the heart of spring;
When the dark of the frail new moon
Is a globe of dim sea green,
And no soul fears what its strange
Sea-memories may mean.
These are the happy songs
The first sea children made,
When the red morning roused them
In the deep forest shade;
When Hillborn said to Seaborn,
"Sweetheart, but thou art fair!"
And the shining silver sea-mist
Made moonstones in her hair.
These are the lilting songs
The dark sea children knew,
When the sands emerged, and the sea
Was a lotus of Indian blue;
When, blossom by wind-blown blossom,
Their virginal zones undone,
The world was a wide sunflower
Turning her face to the sun.
II
These are the joyous songs
The shy sea children sing,
When the moon goes down the west,
Soft as a pale moth wing;
When the gnat and the bumblebee
In the gauze of sleep are fast,
And a fairy summer dream
Is the only thing will last.
These are the ever-songs
The heart of the sea will sing,
When ash-coloured birds are building,
And lilac thickets ring;
When June is an open road
For every soul that stirs;
When scarlet voices summon,
And not a foot defers.
These are the twilight songs
Out of the simple North,
Where the marchers of the night
In silent troops go forth;
Where Alioth sails and sails
Forever round the pole,
And wonder brings no sad
Disquietude of soul.
And all their bodily beauty
Must flower a moment and die,
As the rain goes down the sea-rim,
The streamers up the sky;
Till time as a falling echo
Shall sift them over and o'er,
And the wind between the stars
Can tell their words no more.
Yet the lyric beat and cry
Which frets the poor frail things
Shall pass from joy to joy
Up through a thousand springs,
Teasing the sullen years
Out of monotony,
As reedbirds pour their rapture
By the unwintered sea.
Bliss Carman
Clytie, The Heliotrope
There was once a Nymph named Clytie, who gazed ever at Apollo as he drove his sun-chariot through the heavens. She watched him as he rose in the east attended by the rosy-fingered Dawn and the dancing Hours. She gazed as he ascended the heavens, urging his steeds still higher in the fierce heat of the noonday. She looked with wonder as at evening he guided his steeds downward to their many-colored pastures under the western sky, where they fed all night on ambrosia.
Apollo saw not Clytie. He had no thought for her, but he shed his brightest beams upon her sister the white Nymph Leucothoë. And when Clytie perceived this she was filled with envy and grief.
Night and day she sat on the bare ground weeping. For nine days and nine nights she never raised herself from the earth, nor did she take food or drink; but ever she turned her weeping eyes toward the sun-god as he moved through the sky.
And her limbs became rooted to the ground. Green leaves enfolded her body. Her beautiful face was concealed by tiny flowers, violet-colored and sweet with perfume. Thus was she changed into a flower and her roots held her fast to the ground; but ever she turned her blossom-covered face toward the sun, following with eager gaze his daily flight. In vain were her sorrow and tears, for Apollo regarded her not.
And so through the ages has the Nymph turned her dew-washed face toward the heavens, and men no longer call her Clytie, but the sun-flower, heliotrope.
BY OVID [ADAPTED]
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