Nothing was
Before they drowned
Woke and found
They had not the tongues of angels
But the music of the water,
Bloodless, thin, and silver;
Then they heard
Voices and the sound of men,
Above
Flinched to see each other, rising in the murk
Faceless, green of hair, and golden-eyed –
Each became a face to meet the faces of the living
A hand to catch the hands one caught, before;
A net of hair to drag the quarry into dark;
From water shaped a voice to prophesy.
…
Ten years or more they lay
At the bottom of the lake
And all their fleeting lovers cried
O my sin, my sin incarnate
As the world changed about them
As they thought that they might live
Cursing air and breathing water –
The ladies laughed, exchanged a glance
Amid the slaughter
And smiled till hope was lost: the fools were drowned,
Then the bodies sank without a sound.