The Sirens once were maidens innocent
That through the water-meads with Proserpine
Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content
Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,
With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;
Till once they sought the bright AEtnaean flowers,
And their bright mistress fled from summer hours
With Hades, down the irremeable decline.
And they have sought her all the wide world through
Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong
Have filled and changed their song, and o'er the blue
Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song,
And whoso hears must listen till he die
Far on the flowery shores of Sicily.

So is it with this singing art of ours,
That once with maids went maidenlike, and played
With woven dances in the poplar-shade,
And all her song was but of lady's bowers
And the returning swallows, and spring-flowers,
Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,
A shadowy land; and now hath overweighed
Her singing chaplet with the snow and showers.
Yea, fair well-water for the bitter brine
She left, and by the margin of life's sea
Sings, and her song is full of the sea's moan,
And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;
And whoso once has listened to her, he
His whole life long is slave to her alone.

The Seekers For Phaeacia

There is a land in the remotest day,
Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
Make life, - the lands beneath the blue of common skies.

But in the west is a mysterious sea,
(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan

Eastward the human cares of house and home,
Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;
Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.

The Gods are careless of the days and death
Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
The Gods are heedless of their painful breath,
And love them not, for they are not as these;
But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.

Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live
At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give,
Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.

It is a quiet midland; in the cool
Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed,
To watch the maids and young men beautiful
Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,
For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed.

Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!
But with a mist they hide them wondrously,
And far the path and dim to where they sleep, -
The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep.

A Song Of Phaeacia

The languid sunset, mother of roses,
Lingers, a light on the magic seas,
The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses,
Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.

The red rose clouds, without law or leader,
Gather and float in the airy plain;
The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar,
The cedar scatters his scent to the main.

The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing,
Heard afar over moonlit seas;
The Siren's song, grown faint in winging,
Falls in scent on the cedar trees.

As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying,
Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds
Brighten the air with their wings; their crying
Wakens a moment the weary herds.

Butterflies flit from the fairy garden,
Living blossoms of flying flowers;
Never the nights with winter harden,
Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.

Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden,
Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;
Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden,
Swing, and cling to the garden wall.

Deep in the woods as twilight darkens,
Glades are red with the scented fire;
Far in the dells the white maid hearkens,
Song and sigh of the heart's desire.

Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning,
Maiden's song in the matin grey,
Faints as the first bird's note, a warning,
Wakes and wails to the new-born day.

The waking song and the dying measure
Meet, and the waxing and waning light
Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure,
The rose of the sea and the sky is white.

The Phaeacians

Why from the dreamy meadows,
More fair than any dream,
Why will you seek the shadows
Beyond the ocean stream?

Through straits of storm and peril,
Through firths unsailed before,
Why make you for the sterile,
The dark Kimmerian shore?

There no bright streams are flowing,
There day and night are one,
No harvest time, no sowing,
No sight of any sun;

No sound of song or tabor,
No dance shall greet you there;
No noise of mortal labour,
Breaks on the blind chill air.

Are ours not happy places,
Where Gods with mortals trod?
Saw not our sires the faces
Of many a present God?

They Hear The Sirens For The Second Time

The weary sails a moment slept,
The oars were silent for a space,
As past Hesperian shores we swept,
That were as a remembered face
Seen after lapse of hopeless years,
In Hades, when the shadows meet,
Dim through the mist of many tears,
And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.

So seemed the half-remembered shore,
That slumbered, mirrored in the blue,
With havens where we touched of yore,
And ports that over well we knew.
Then broke the calm before a breeze
That sought the secret of the west;
And listless all we swept the seas
Towards the Islands of the Blest.

Beside a golden sanded bay
We saw the Sirens, very fair
The flowery hill whereon they lay,
The flowers set upon their hair.
Their old sweet song came down the wind,
Remembered music waxing strong,
Ah now no need of cords to bind,
No need had we of Orphic song.

It once had seemed a little thing,
To lay our lives down at their feet,
That dying we might hear them sing,
And dying see their faces sweet;
But now, we glanced, and passing by,
No care had we to tarry long;
Faint hope, and rest, and memory
Were more than any Siren's song.

The King and the Siren

The harsh King--Winter--sat upon the hills,
And reigned and ruled the earth right royally.
He locked the rivers, lakes, and all the rills--
"I am no puny, maudlin king," quoth he,
"But a stern monarch, born to rule, and reign;
And I'll show my power to the end.
The summer's flowery retinue I've slain,
And taken the bold, free North Wind for my friend.

"Spring, Summer, Autumn--feeble queens they were,
With their vast troops of flowers, birds and bees,
Soft winds, that made the long green grasses stir--
They lost their own identity in things like these!
I scorn them all! nay, I defy them all!
And none can wrest the sceptre from my hand.
The trusty North Wind answers to my call,
And breathes this icy breath upon the land."

The Siren--South Wind--listening the while,
Now floated airily across the lea.
"Oh King!" she cried, with tender tone and smile,
"I come to do all homage unto thee.
In all the sunny region, whence I came,
I find none like thee, King, so brave and grand!
Thine is a well deserved, unrivaled fame;
I kiss, in awe, dear King, thy cold white hand."

Her words were pleasing, and most fair her face.
He listened wrapt, to her soft-whispered praise.
She nestled nearer, in her Siren grace.
"Dear King," she said, "henceforth my voice shall raise
But songs of thy unrivaled splendor!
Lo! How white thy brow is!
How thy garments shine!
I tremble 'neath thy beaming glance, for
Oh, Thy wondrous beauty mak'st thee seem divine."

The rain King listened, in a trance of bliss,
To this most sweet-voiced Siren from the South,
She nestled close, and pressed a lingering kiss
Upon the stern white pallor of his mouth.
She hung upon his breast, she pressed his cheek,
And he was nothing loth to hold her there,
While she such tender, loving words did speak,
And combed his white locks with her fingers fair.

And so she bound him, in her Siren wiles,
And stole his strength, with every kiss she gave,
And stabbed him through and through with tender smiles,
And with her tender words she dug his grave;
And then she left him, old, and weak, and blind,
And unlocked all the rivers, lakes, and rills,
While the queen Spring, with her whole troop behind,
Of flowers, and birds, and bees, came o'er the hills.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Realms Of Fantasy Site Map