*Chthonian Revelation: A Myth*

*Robert Penn Warren*

I. Prologue : Mediterranean Basin
I. Chthonian Revelation: A Myth


Long before sun had toward the mountain dipped,
There downward at crag-fall, bare-footed, bare-hided but for
Beach-decency’s minimum, they
Painfully picked past lava, past pumice, past boulders
High-hung and precarious over the sea-edge, awaiting
Last gust or earth-tremor. Below,
Lay the sand-patch, white
As the lace-fringe that, languid and lazy,
Teased from the edge of the sun-singing sea.

Few know what is there:
Sea and sand finger back into cave-shade where
Gothic, great strata,
Once torn in the shudder of earth and earth-agony, had
Down-reached to find footing in depth. Now deep
In arched dusk from the secret strand, the eye
Stares from that mystic and chthonian privacy
To far waters whose tirelessly eye-slashing blue
Commands the wide world beyond that secret purlieu.

After sun, how dark! Or after sun-scimitar, how
Gentle the touch of the shade’s hypothetical hand, Farther on,
Farther in!—and on the soft sand he is sure
Of the track. Then looks back
Just once through the dwindling aperture
To the world of light-tangled detail.

Where once life was led that now seems illusion of life
And swings in the distance with no more identity than
A dream half-remembered. He turns. His face lifts
To the soaring and scarcely definable nave,
From which darkness downward and endlessly sifts.

Eyes lower: and there,
In that drizzle of earth’s inner darkness, she
Stands, face upward arms up as in prayer or
Communion with whispers that wordlessly breathe—
There in columnar gracility stands, breasts,
In that posture, high. Eyes closes, And in
Such world of shadows, she,
From the light of her own inner being, glows.

Slowly, the lifted arms descend, fingers out,
Slightly parted. His eyes find the light of her eyes,
And over immeasurable distance,
Hands out, as thought feeling his way in the act,
On the soundless sand he moves in his naked trance,
At last fingertips make contact.

When in hermetic wisdom they wake, the cave-mouth is dim.
Once out, they find sun sinking under the mountain-rim,
And a last gleam boldly probes
High eastward the lone upper cloud. Scraps of nylon
Slip on like new skin, though cold, and feet
Find the rustle and kitten-tongue kiss of the foam creeping in.

A kilometer toward the headland, then home: they wade out,
And plunge. All wordless, this—
In a world where all words would be
Without meaning, and all they long to hear
Is the gull’s high cry
Of mercilessly joyful veracity
To fill the hollow sky.

Side by side, stroke by stroke, in a fading light they move.
The sea pours over each stroke’s frail groove.
Blackly, the headland looms. The first start is declared.
It is white above the mountain mass.
Eyes starward fixed, they feel the sea’s long swell
And the darkling drag of the nameless depth below.
They turn the headland, with starlight the only light
they now know.

At arch-height of every stroke, at each fingertip, hangs
One drop, and the drops—one by one—are
About to fall, each a perfect universe defined
By its single, minuscule, radiant, enshrined star.



Robert Penn Warren. Rumor Verified: Poems 1979-1980. New York: Random House, 1981. P 3-5.