All cattle waste and rot, and their ill smell Grows alway from the lank unsavoury flesh That no man slays for offering; the sea And waters moved beneath the heath and corn Preserve the people of fin-twinkling fish, And river-flies feed thick upon the smooth; But all earth over is no man or bird (Except the sweet race of the kingfisher) That lacks not and is wearied with much loss. Meantime the purple inward of the house Was softened with all grace of scent and sound In ear and nostril perfecting my praise; Faint grape-flowers and cloven honey-cake And the just grain with dues of the shed salt Made me content: yet my hand loosened not Its gripe upon your harvest all year long. While I, thus woman-muffled in wan flesh And waste externals of a perished face, Preserved the levels of my wrath and love Patiently ruled; and with soft offices Cooled the sharp noons and busied the warm nights In care of this my choice, this child my choice, Triptolemus, the king's selected son: That this fair yearlong body, which hath grown Strong with strange milk upon the mortal lip And nerved with half a god, might so increase Outside the bulk and the bare scope of man: And waxen over large to hold within Base breath of yours and this impoverished air, I might exalt him past the flame of stars, The limit and walled reach of the great world. Therefore my breast made common to his mouth Immortal savours, and the taste whereat Twice their hard life strains out the coloured veins And twice its brain confirms the narrow shell. Also at night, unwinding cloth from cloth As who unhusks an almond to the white And pastures curiously the purer taste, I bared the gracious limbs and the soft feet, Unswaddled the weak hands, and in mid ash Laid the sweet flesh of either feeble side, More tender for impressure of some touch Than wax to any pen; and lit around Fire, and made crawl the white worm-shapen flame, And leap in little angers spark by spark At head at once and feet; and the faint hair Hissed with rare sprinkles in the closer curl, And like scaled oarage of a keen thin fish In sea-water, so in pure fire his feet Struck out, and the flame bit not in his flesh, But like a kiss it curled his lip, and heat Fluttered his eyelids; so each night I blew The hot ash red to purge him to full god. Ill is it when fear hungers in the soul For painful food, and chokes thereon, being fed; And ill slant eyes interpret the straight sun, But in their scope its white is wried to black: By the queen Metaneira mean I this; For with sick wrath upon her lips, and heart Narrowing with fear the spleenful passages, She thought to thread this web's fine ravel out, Nor leave her shuttle split in combing it; Therefore she stole on us, and with hard sight Peered, and stooped close; then with pale open mouth As the fire smote her in the eyes between