No More Learning

The new spirit summons, the eagle is done,

Cybele's robe for him do I now put on. . .

The beloved son of Hermes and Osiris! '

The goddess fled away on her golden shell,

Her adored image returning to us on the swell,

And the sky shone beneath the scarf of Iris.

Note: This poem is a consequence of the two previous poems. Kneph, is Amon-Ra the great god of Egypt. Isis was the Egyptian mother goddess (Cybele was her equivalent in Asia Minor): consort of Osiris she bore the child Horus-Harpocrates, the new sun (De Nerval's image here for the Christ-Child). This is the alchemical fusion of male and female principles which produces gold, a process sacred to Hermes Trismegistos. Iris' scarf is the rainbow, she being sky-messenger for Hera (the Greek great-goddess). Isis returns as Venus from the waves but fused with Mary, the Stella Maris.

Delfica

Do you know it, Daphne, that ballad of old,

At the sycamore-foot, or beneath the white laurels,

Under myrtle or olive or trembling willows,

That song of love that resounds forever? . . .
Do you know it, the Temple with vast peristyle,

And the lemons, bitter, marked by your teeth,

And the grotto fatal to imprudent guests,

Where the vanquished dragon's ancient seed sleeps? . . .

Those gods you endlessly weep will return!

Time bring back the order of classic days;

Earth has shuddered with prophetic breath. . .

Yet the sibyl with Latinate face still sleeps

Under the arch of Constantine

- And the austere portico nothing disturbs.

Note: There are references to a visit to the Temple of Isis at Pompeii with an English girl, Octavia (who tasted a lemon), and to the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. Constantine's Arch is in Rome. Condensed mythological references abound.

Artemis

The thirteenth returns. . . She's forever the first;

And always the sole one - or the sole instant;

For are you queen, O you, the first or the last?