Sisyphus
Midway his upward unavailing course
Sate Sisyphus, his back against his load,
Halting a moment from that task of doom.
Adown his swollen cheeks ran streams of sweat
Dripping from thick-drenched locks; and watery beads
Gathered and stood on his stupendous limbs.
The sinews of his arm, like gnarled knots
On hollow bark of legendary oak,
Credentials of incalculable years,
Bulged up, and in his horny hands outspread
Upon his wrinkled knees, the arching veins
Glittered like tempered steel. His stertorous breath
Moaned like to bellows in cyclopean forge,
Wherewith in smithy subterranean
Against the Gods rebellious demigods
Fashion their molten ineffectual bolts.
But when, asudden, swift on angry flash,
Rumbled imperious thunder overhead,
At the commanding mandate, Sisyphus,
Bulkily rising, straightened limbs relaxed,
And turned him yet again unto his task,
Mumbling the while habitual lament.
``Why was I chosen for this hateful task,
Fantastically futile, which the Gods
Lay on their victim, for their own disport?
Rather a thousand times upon the wheel
Would I, Ixion-like, be racked, or lift
The tantalising gourd-cup to my lips.
I was no wickeder than they, and I
Founded Ephyra in a stony land,
Raised monolithic temples to the Gods,
And made the name of Corinth glorious from
Peloponnesus unto Attica.
Was it a crime to be Ulysses' sire
By sportive Anticlea ere she wed
Laertes, bringing him a Royal heir?
Yearning for whom, when Circe and her lures
From Ithaca withheld his bark, she died.
If such to me imputed be a crime,
Then all the Gods are bestial criminals,
Lustful, adulterous, meretricious Gods.
What more was my offence? Was it because
I from the clustered sister-Pleiades
Lured Merope to earth to share my love,
Not an ephemeral, but strong-nuptialled love?
Whereat the Gods, envying a mortal's joy,
Darkened her light in Heaven, and vengefully
In me infused her immortality,
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
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