Both nuns and mothers worship images, But those the candles light are not as those That animate a mother’s reveries, But keep a marble or a bronze repose. And yet they too break hearts--O Presences That passion, piety or affection knows, And that all heavenly glory symbolise-- O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise; VIII Labour is blossoming or dancing where The body is not bruised to pleasure soul, Nor beauty born out of its own despair, Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? COLONUS’ PRAISE (From ‘Oedipus at Colonus’) CHORUS Come praise Colonus’ horses and come praise The wine dark of the wood’s intricacies, The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion. And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden thrives The self-sown, self-begotten shape that gives Athenian intellect its mastery, Even the grey-leaved olive tree Miracle-bred out of the living stone; Nor accident of peace nor war Shall wither that old marvel, for The great grey-eyed Athene stares thereon. Who comes into this country, and has come Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom, Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter And beauty-drunken by the water Glittering among grey-leaved olive trees, Has plucked a flower and sung her loss; Who finds abounding Cephisus Has found the loveliest spectacle there is. Because this country has a pious mind And so remembers that when all mankind But trod the road, or paddled by the shore, Poseidon gave it bit and oar, Every Colonus lad or lass discourses Of that oar and of that bit; Summer and winter, day and night, Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses. THE HERO, THE GIRL, AND THE FOOL The Girl I rage at my own image in the glass, That’s so unlike myself that when you praise it It is as though you praised another, or even Mocked me with praise of my mere opposite; And when I wake towards morn I dread myself For the heart cries that what deception wins Cruelty must keep; therefore be warned and go If you have seen that image and not the woman. The Hero I have raged at my own strength because you have loved it. The Girl If you are no more strength than I am beauty I had better find a convent and turn nun; A nun at least has all men’s reverence And needs no cruelty. The Hero I have heard one say That men have reverence for their holiness And not themselves. The Girl