Calling god or saint to save;
Little use, if choked with salt, a
Prayer to holy John of Malta.
Patron John, he hears thee not.
Or, perchance, in dusky grot
Pale Persephone, repining
For the fields that still are shining,
Shining in her sleepless brain,
Calling "Back! come back again!"
Fain of playmate, fain of pet--
Any drug to slay regret,
Hath from hell upcast an eye
On thy fatal symmetry;
And beguiled her sooty lord
With his brother to accord
For this black betrayal.
Else Nereus in his car of shells
Long ago had cleft the waters
With his natatory daughters
To the rescue: or Poseidon
Sent a fish for thee to ride on--
Such a steed as erst Arion
Reached the mainland high and dry on.
Steed appeareth none, nor pilot!
Little dog, if it be thy lot
To essay the dismal track
Where Odysseus half hung back,
How wilt thou conciliate
That grim mastiff by the gate?
Sure, 'twill puzzle thee to fawn