O women, O sweet people of this land, O goodly city and pleasant ways thereof, And woods with pasturing grass and great well-heads, And hills with light and night between your leaves, And winds with sound and silence in your lips, And earth and water and all immortal things, I take you to my witness what I am. There is a god about me like as fire, Sprung whence, who knoweth, or who hath heart to say? A god more strong than whom slain beasts can soothe, Or honey, or any spilth of blood-like wine, Nor shall one please him with a whitened brow Nor wheat nor wool nor aught of plaited leaf. For like my mother am I stung and slain, And round my cheeks have such red malady And on my lips such fire and foam as hers. This is that Ate out of Amathus That breeds up death and gives it one for love. She hath slain mercy, and for dead mercy's sake (Being frighted with this sister that was slain) Flees from before her fearful-footed shame, And will not bear the bending of her brows And long soft arrows flown from under them As from bows bent. Desire flows out of her As out of lips doth speech: and over her Shines fire, and round her and beneath her fire. She hath sown pain and plague in all our house, Love loathed of love, and mates unmatchable, Wild wedlock, and the lusts that bleat or low, And marriage-fodder snuffed about of kine. Lo how the heifer runs with leaping flank Sleek under shaggy and speckled lies of hair, And chews a horrible lip, and with harsh tongue Laps alien froth and licks a loathlier mouth. Alas, a foul first steam of trodden tares, And fouler of these late grapes underfoot. A bitter way of waves and clean-cut foam Over the sad road of sonorous sea The high gods gave king Theseus for no love, Nay, but for love, yet to no loving end. Alas the long thwarts and the fervent oars, And blown hard sails that straightened the scant rope! There were no strong pools in the hollow sea To drag at them and suck down side and beak, No wind to catch them in the teeth and hair, No shoal, no shallow among the roaring reefs, No gulf whereout the straining tides throw spars, No surf where white bones twist like whirled white fire. But like to death he came with death, and sought And slew and spoiled and gat him that he would. For death, for marriage, and for child-getting, I set my curse against him as a sword; Yea, and the severed half thereof I leave Pittheus, because he slew not (when that face Was tender, and the life still soft in it) The small swathed child, but bred him for my fate. I would I had been the first that took her death Out from between wet hoofs and reddened teeth, Splashed horns, fierce fetlocks of the brother bull? For now shall I take death a deadlier way, Gathering it up between the feet of love Or off the knees of murder reaching it.