Orpheus

Returning with the Argonauts from Colchis,

Where his lyre had quelled the wandering rocks,

Lulled the waters, pacified the dragon,

He married his dryad bride of universal justice

Beneath the egg-shell sky which sealed out night,

And tuned his song among the savage Cicones

In Thrace. Unnumbered birds swarmed overhead

And fishes leaped straight upward from the water

Which surged from the egg-shell earth

As Orpheus played. Then Death chose Eurydice.

Hunted by the shepherd Aristaeus,

She trod upon a viper and descended into Tartarus.

Orpheus followed by the caves which open

At Aornum in Thesprotis. His harmonies

Shaped unsayable space in darkness.

They charmed the fearsome ferryman,

Calmed the triple heads of Cerberus,

And made three Judges of the Dead suspend

Their torture of the damned. Sisyphus’ stone

And Ixion’s wheel stood still. The song

Won leave of savage Dis to bring

Eurydice home, till Orpheus turned to see

Her face and she dwindled into darkness.

But not for nothing had Mnemosyne

Borne Muse Calliope. Memory

Laid a fetter on her grandson.

He never joined the day-light revelry,

But preached male love, scorned women,

And enraged the Goddess Aphrodite. When

He served Apollo in his temple, telling men

That sacrificing human kind was sin,

The mocked god Dionysos sent his Maenads in

And tore Orpheus limb from limb.

From a Thracian cliff they threw his head.

The crafty river god went tumbling

Through tunnels underground (in time

To halt the crimson Maenads bathing

When they thought to cleanse their crime),

But the Hebrus bore the head and lyre

Down to the Aegean Sea. Singing of desire

To see again a vanished face

The head swirled past the cliffs of Samothrace,

Drifted round Imbros, Lemnos, Tenedos,

To snag between two rocks on Lesbos.

Though lacking human fingers on the string

The lyre made all of Lesbos sing.

Oracles flowed from Orpheus’ head

And emptied temples of the god -

Trees turned to stone along the shore

When Apollo bade it speak no more.

At Zone, in Thrace, the mountain oaks still throng,

Creak and bend and dance to Orpheus’ song.

©Terry Hodgson2026