THE HALCYON 



Ceyx, Son of the Morning Star, with the hand that was wont to hold his 

 sceptre, grasped a piece of wreckage and called on his father and the winds. 



Still more often in his mouth was the name of his wife Halcyone . . . 

 she held his mind, his memory, and he prayed that the waters might bear his 

 body to her eyes so that her dear hands might give him burial. ... So 

 he called on the name of Halcyone and murmured it in the very bosom of 

 the waves. . . . 



And the Morning Star veiled his face in thick clouds. . . . 



" There is no Halcyone ! She died with her Ceyx ! " 



So at break of day she went out from the palace to the shore whence she 

 had watched Ceyx depart. " Here," she said, " his cables were loosened ! 

 Here on the shore he kissed me ere he went." 



And as she looked out over the sea she saw in the distance something 

 like a body in the water. 



" It is he ! " she cried, and held out trembling hands. " Is it thus, dear 

 husband of my heart, is it thus, thou helpless one, that thou comest back 

 to me ? " 



Close to the sea there is a bank, built by man, which breaks the first fury 

 of the sea and bears the first onslaught of the waves. To it she sprang, and 

 — miracle of miracles — from it she and her love flew, beating the air 

 with new-born wings skimming over the crests of the waves. . . . 



A sound of misery and full of plaint echoed out, she covered the dear 

 limbs with her new wings, she pressed on them, all in vain, cold kisses. . . . 



Did Ceyx feel them ? Or did the movements of the waves uplift his 

 head to them ? 



They that watched knew not, but through the Pity of the Gods 

 the husband and the wife were changed to birds, their fates were the same, 

 their love remained. ... So for seven calm days . . . the Halcyon broods 

 on its nest on the face of the waters . . . 



. . . Then in the pathway of the sea free from danger, for Aelohus 

 guards the winds in their prison and governs the waves. . . . — Ovid's 

 Metamorphoses. 



And so the Halcyons spread the waves smooth and calm, the South 

 Winds and East Winds which stir up the seaweed from the depths ; for the 



