dots-menu
×

Home  »  The English Poets  »  ‘One day, at noontide, when the chase was done’ (from Orion)

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Richard Henry Hengist Horne (1802–1884)

‘One day, at noontide, when the chase was done’ (from Orion)

(From Book I, Canto II)

ONE day, at noontide, when the chase was done,

Which with unresting speed since dawn had held,

The woods were all with golden fires alive,

And heavy limbs tingled with glowing heat.

Sylvans and Fauns at full length cast them down,

And cooled their flame-red faces in the grass,

Or o’er a streamlet bent, and dipped their heads

Deep as the top hair of their pointed ears;

While Nymphs and Oceanides retired

To grots and sacred groves, with loitering steps,

And bosoms swelled and throbbing, like a bird’s

Held between human hands. The hounds with tongues

Crimson, and lolling hot upon the green,

And outstretched noses, flatly crouched; their skins

Clouded or spotted, like the field-bean’s flower,

Or tiger-lily, painted the wide lawns.

Orion wandered deep into a vale

Alone; from all the rest his steps he bent,

Thoughtful, yet with no object in his mind;

Languid, yet restless. Near a hazel copse,

Whose ripe nuts hung in clusters twined with grapes,

He paused, down gazing, till upon his sense

A fragrance stole, as of ambrosia wafted

Through the warm shades by some divinity

Amid the woods. With gradual step he moved

Onward, and soon the poppied entrance found

Of a secluded bower. He entered straight,

Unconsciously attracted, and beheld

His Goddess love, who slept—her robe cast off,

Her sandals, bow and quiver, thrown aside,

Yet with her hair still braided, and her brow

Decked with her crescent light. Awed and alarmed

By loving reverence—which dreads offence

E’en though the wrong were never known, and feels

Its heart’s religion for religion’s self,

Besides its object’s claim—swift he retired.

The entrance gain’d, what thoughts, what visions his!

What danger had he ’scaped, what innocent crime,

Which Artemis might yet have felt so deep!

He blest the God of Sleep who thus had held

Her senses! Yet, what loveliness had glanced

Before his mind—scarce seen! Might it not be

Illusion?—some bright shadow of a hope

First dawning? Would not sleep’s God still exert

Safe influence, if he once more stole back

And gazed an instant? ’Twere not well to do,

And would o’erstain with doubt the accident

Which first had led him there. He dare not risk

The chance ’twere not illusion—oh, if true!

While thus he murmured hesitating, slow,

As slow and hesitating he returned

Instinctively, and on the Goddess gazed!

With adoration and delicious fear,

Lingering he stood; then pace by pace retired,

Till in the hazel copse sighing he paused,

And with most earnest face, and vacant eye,

And brow perplexed, stared at a tree. His hands

Were clenched; his burning feet pressed down the soil,

And changed their place. Suddenly he turned round,

And made his way direct into the bower.

There was a slumb’rous silence in the air,

By noon-tide’s sultry murmurs from without

Made more oblivious. Not a pipe was heard

From field or wood; but the grave beetle’s drone

Passed near the entrance; once the cuckoo called

O’er distant meads, and once a horn began

Melodious plaint, then died away. A sound

Of murmurous music yet was in the breeze,

For silver gnats that harp on glassy strings,

And rise and fall in sparkling clouds, sustained

Their dizzy dances o’er the seething meads.

With brain as dizzy stood Orion now

I’ the quivering bower. There rapturous he beheld,

As in a trance, not conscious of himself,

The perfect sculpture of that naked form,

Whose Parian whiteness and clear outline gleamed

In its own hue, nor from the foliage took

One tint, nor from his ample frame one shade.

Her lovely hair hung drooping, half unbound,—

Fair silken braids, fawn-tinted delicately,

That on one shoulder lodge their opening coil.

Her large round arms of dazzling beauty lay

In matchless symmetry and inviolate grace,

Along the mossy floor. At length he dropped

Softly upon his knees, his clasped hands raised

Above his head, till by resistless impulse

His arms descending, were expanded wide—

Swift as a flash, erect the Goddess rose!

Her eyes shot through Orion, and he felt

Within his breast an icy dart. Confronted,

Mutely they stood, but all the bower was filled

With rising mist that chilled him to the bone,

Colder, as more obscure the space became;

And ere the last collected shape he saw

Of Artemis, dispersing fast amid

Dense vapoury clouds, the aching wintriness

Had risen to his teeth, and fixed his eyes,

Like glistening stones in the congealing air.