I SAID.

( Winter - 1919. )

I.

I said :

"think how Hymettus pours divine honey,
think how dawn vies
in the shelter of Hymettus,
with the clusters of field-violet,
( rill on rill of violets!
parted and crested fire!)
think of Hymettus
and the tufted spire of thyme,
hyacinth, wild wind-flower,
think of Hymettus
beyond mist," I said, "and rain,"
and you,
"twere better, better being dead."

"But what grave heart," I said,
"of beauty dies if you die :
at Marathon there bled
souls such as yours,
such souls as yours ~~stained~~
stained those pale violets red,
her violets beyond Athens,
and they fled,
spearsmen of lesser force than ours,
being but a thousand, thousand,
that vaste horde,
without her spear head
glittering at their head,
being a million, million and they fled
at Marathon".
"I am no Greek," you said.

### III.

Ah, the long path down from that hill,
the very rocks broken,
scattered, rain of sand,
rocks clutched - sliding down -
shield, helmet, light as fire -
ah yes, he had made them, Hephaestos,
he had wrought and hammered for us
the lance and the shield,
the helmet that rested as light
as the silver under-side of the grape-leaf
that Bacchus strips
from the tough, warped wood-stem,
where the leaf shows its fine, tender, white fibre
where it joins the rough threads
of the brown wood-fibre of the vine.

Ah the gold in our hearts,
and the shrill pain in our hearts
that was not pain;
yet who could say it was joy?
it was beyond any words;
there were no words
even in our glorious speech
that could hint the joy we had then;
how can we to-day in a crude tongue,
in a strange land hope to say
one word that can hint at the joy we had
when the rocks broke like sand under our heels
and they fled?

Don't you understand,
as far as anything purposeful goes,
of you tear the fruit from the vine,
gloriously with violence and madness and joy,
the rough wood fibre
most likely will slash into your fingers
and leave blood on your hand?

Don't you understand
if you to-day in a crude speech
in a dark land hope to say,
to speak one word of the joy we had
( to people who anyway don't want to understand )
when the rocks broke like fire under our feet
and they fled,

O don't you, don't you understand,
you must count yourself now, now among the dead?