“Astraea, purest of all the holy ones, so long absent
from earth’s stormy shores, hear me now. I have suffered.
I have suffered sorely. You, all-seeing, know well my faithless crime.
No wall was ever built to stem the fury of the wind in vengeance,
and in these long years They hound all steps
and over every hill echoes the baying of their beasts,
but never have you given unto me death’s cool embrace in judgment.
No! The oak leaves turn over all in silver from savage rolling gusts
and They ride on that dusted wind with wings of the night!
Oh, mercy, mercy, I know that Thisiphone rides ahead,
her studded scourge gnashing brass upon brass
like the wintry teeth of a loosely bundled peasant on the steppes,
her tears more blood than blood can be.
Mercy! She races to rip my bones to ribbons!
Oh, Dike, do not utterly condemn me!
My evil was no new and fearful abomination,
and yet my bare touch murders a jungle of ivy,
the flocks of those who give me shelter decline into disease,
the ocean recedes at my feet so that I may not sink to drown!
I have paid my oath-breaking, paid and paid three times again,
the trace of my wanderings a seam of iron in the soil.
No more, I beg of you! In supplication,
humbly seeking your ear, I have climbed the highest peak.
I stand mere miles from the torment of the fire-giver.
Shall the serpents that encircle your dread Furies
drip their venom ever upon my cursed body?
No longer shall I flee.
Have my life, I love it not.
To your level hand I yield.
Blameless gods, what is this silence, this peace,
this air with nary a scent of doom or flame?
Where are rivers spoiled by my lips from crystal to a swamp,
or trees that shrivel fruit into seeds before it can be plucked?
Have I gone mad, that I can no longer hear the hunting packs,
that my shoulders bear not the kiss of the lash?
Oh, though I die of thirst and am stranded in high mountains
amid the chattering ice of the past, I have found the peace of heaven.”
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