The Chosen

"[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]"     "A woman for whom great gods might strive!"     I said, and kissed her there:     And then I thought of the other five,     And of how charms outwear.     I thought of the first with her eating eyes,     And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray,     And I thought of the third, experienced, wise,     And I thought of the fourth who sang all day.     And I thought of the fifth, whom I'd called a jade,     And I thought of them all, tear-fraught;     And that each had shown her a passable maid,     Yet not of the favour sought.     So I traced these words on the bark of a beech,     Just at the falling of the mast:     "After scanning five; yes, each and each,     I've found the woman desired at last!"     " I feel a strange benumbing spell,     As one ill-wished!" said she.     And soon it seemed that something fell     Was starving her love for me.     "I feel some curse. O, FIVE were there?"     And wanly she swerved, and went away.     I followed sick: night numbed the air,     And dark the mournful moorland lay.     I cried: "O darling, turn your head!"     But never her face I viewed;     "O turn, O turn!" again I said,     And miserably pursued.     At length I came to a Christ-cross stone     Which she had passed without discern;     And I knelt upon the leaves there strown,     And prayed aloud that she might turn.     I rose, and looked; and turn she did;     I cried, "My heart revives!"     "Look more," she said. I looked as bid;     Her face was all the five's.     All the five women, clear come back,     I saw in her with her made one,     The while she drooped upon the track,     And her frail term seemed well-nigh run.     She'd half forgot me in her change;     "Who are you? Won't you say     Who you may be, you man so strange,     Following since yesterday?"     I took the composite form she was,     And carried her to an arbour small,     Not passion-moved, but even because     In one I could atone to all.     And there she lies, and there I tend,     Till my life's threads unwind,     A various womanhood in blend -     Not one, but all combined.