Ballad Of A Wilful Woman

FIRST PART     Upon her plodding palfrey     With a heavy child at her breast     And Joseph holding the bridle     They mount to the last hill-crest.     Dissatisfied and weary     She sees the blade of the sea     Dividing earth and heaven     In a glitter of ecstasy.     Sudden a dark-faced stranger     With his back to the sun, holds out     His arms; so she lights from her palfrey     And turns her round about.     She has given the child to Joseph,     Gone down to the flashing shore;     And Joseph, shading his eyes with his hand,     Stands watching evermore.             SECOND PART     THE sea in the stones is singing,     A woman binds her hair     With yellow, frail sea-poppies,     That shine as her fingers stir.     While a naked man comes swiftly     Like a spurt of white foam rent     From the crest of a falling breaker,     Over the poppies sent.     He puts his surf-wet fingers     Over her startled eyes,     And asks if she sees the land, the land,     The land of her glad surmise.             THIRD PART     AGAIN in her blue, blue mantle     Riding at Joseph's side,     She says, "I went to Cythera,     And woe betide!"     Her heart is a swinging cradle     That holds the perfect child,     But the shade on her forehead ill becomes     A mother mild.     So on with the slow, mean journey     In the pride of humility;     Till they halt at a cliff on the edge of the land     Over a sullen sea.     While Joseph pitches the sleep-tent     She goes far down to the shore     To where a man in a heaving boat     Waits with a lifted oar.             FOURTH PART     THEY dwelt in a huge, hoarse sea-cave     And looked far down the dark     Where an archway torn and glittering     Shone like a huge sea-spark.     He said: "Do you see the spirits     Crowding the bright doorway?"     He said: "Do you hear them whispering?"     He said: "Do you catch what they say?"             FIFTH PART     THEN Joseph, grey with waiting,     His dark eyes full of pain,     Heard: "I have been to Patmos;     Give me the child again."     Now on with the hopeless journey     Looking bleak ahead she rode,     And the man and the child of no more account     Than the earth the palfrey trode.     Till a beggar spoke to Joseph,     But looked into her eyes;     So she turned, and said to her husband:     "I give, whoever denies."             SIXTH PART     SHE gave on the open heather     Beneath bare judgment stars,     And she dreamed of her children and Joseph,     And the isles, and her men, and her scars.     And she woke to distil the berries     The beggar had gathered at night,     Whence he drew the curious liquors     He held in delight.     He gave her no crown of flowers,     No child and no palfrey slow,     Only led her through harsh, hard places     Where strange winds blow.     She follows his restless wanderings     Till night when, by the fire's red stain,     Her face is bent in the bitter steam     That comes from the flowers of pain.     Then merciless and ruthless     He takes the flame-wild drops     To the town, and tries to sell them     With the market-crops.     So she follows the cruel journey     That ends not anywhere,     And dreams, as she stirs the mixing-pot,     She is brewing hope from despair.         TRIER