THE TEMPTATION OF ORPHEUS

                  Where she is, it is dark
                  Shelley                                                           

Precious to me was your despair,
        For there I found an older friend
        Than you: myself the previous year
Who did from such a hell ascend.

Precious to me your beauty too,
        Which I saw before I could tell
        Of your frail hope. Your beauty grew
In me, and led me up from hell.

Silent then for more than a year
        I spoke at last, thinking us two
        Both on earth. But your quiet despair
Was what our talk discovered true.

After my ascent, I had hope
        Immeasurable for us. There was
        No world, nothing beyond our scope,
And all would become known to us.

Such hopes would raise you, I was sure,
        From the dark. Not you, but the dream
        Of your beauty had been my lure,
And half-truths can but half-redeem.

You with no image to attend
        Cannot find a path from despair.
        I turn, and find I cannot defend
With hope, the hell into which I stare.

Yet whatever the means, here
        I know I am above the pit
        Of that deep, particular fear,
And may move to worlds beyond it.

With your image, a lost despair
        Remembered in the beauty that led
        To worlds above that hopeless fear
Do I go on, and leave as dead

Someone once the reality of love,
        Now unreal to me, not being here,
        Or shall I forgo these worlds above
And down to us descend hell’s stair?