Songs of Bilitis - Benjamin Adamah

THE ACCOMMODATING FRIEND
The storm had lasted all night. Selenis of the lovely hair had come to spin with
me. She stayed for fear of the mud, and, pressed tightly each to each, we filled my
tiny bed.
When young girls sleep together sleep itself remains outside the door. "Bilitis, tell
me, tell me whom you love." She slipped her thigh across my own to warm me
sweetly.
And she whispered into my mouth: "I know, Bilitis, whom you love. Close your
eyes, I am Lykas." I answered, touching her, "Can't I tell that you are just a girl?
Your joke's a clumsy one."
But she went on: "Truly I am Lykas if you close your lids. Here are his arms, here
are his hands" . . . and tenderly, in the silence, she flushed my dreaming with a
stranger dream.
PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE
Cleansed by the ritual ablutions and clothed in violet robes, we droop our olive
branches to the earth.
"Oh, underworld Persephone, whatever be the name that thou desirest, if this
name pleases thee, oh, hear our prayer, Crowned with Shadows, barren smileless
Queen!
"Koklis, daughter of Thrasymakos, is lying at thy door. Pray do not call her yet;
thou knowest she cannot fly from thee for ever; but take her later, call some other
day.
"Oh, bear her not away so soon, Invisible Mistress! For she bewails her virginity,
she supplicates thee through our prayers; to save her we will give our three black
sheep, unshorn."
14