THE man of Tyre went down to the sea
pondering, for he was a Greek,
that God is one and all alone
and ever more shall be
so.
And a woman who had been washing clothes in the pool of
rock
where a stream
came down to the gravel of the sea and sank in,
who had spread white washing on
the gravel banked above the bay,
who had lain her shift on the shore, on the
shingle slope,
who
had waded to the pale green sea of evening, out to a
shoal,
pouring
sea-water over herself
now turned, and came slowly back, with her back
to the evening sky.
Oh lovely, lovely with the dark hair piled up, as she
went deeper,
deeper
down the channel, then rose shallower, shallower,
with the full thighs slowly
lifting of the wader wading shore- wards
and the shoulders pallid with
light from the silent sky behind
both breasts dim and mysterious, with the
glamorous kindness
of twilight between them
and the dim notch of black maidenhair like an
indicator,
giving a
message to the man —
So in the cane-brake he clasped his hands in
delight
that could
only be god-given, and murmured:
Lo! God is one god! But here in the
twilight
godly and
lovely comes Aphrodite out of the sea
towards me!