The Song of Cup and Mists | By Athonemos

Sing, O Muse, of the day the high heavens grew hungry for the earth,

When the King of the Thunder-Cloud looked down from his starry hearth.

He saw the Prince of Ilium, young Ganymede, fair and bright,

And the small, snow-haired Heleigiri, a blossom of hidden light.

Down swept the Eagle, with pinions that beat like a coming storm,

His talons of brass reached out to claim each young and trembling form.

Through the shrieking wind and the dizzying blue, he bore them high,

To the marble halls of Olympus, where the gods drink the nectar of the sky.

Within the gilded chambers, where the floors are paved with light,

The children sat as prisoners of the King’s unyielding might.

But Ganymede, the Trojan lad, bore a heart of ancient iron;

He saw the maiden’s tears and feared the lust of the Great Lion.

"Small sister of the Lake," he whispered, low beneath the roar,

"The King shall have his cupbearer, but you shall have the shore.

I see the hunger in his eye, the storm within his breast,

But I shall find a way to lead you back to the Mother's rest."

III. The Secret League of the Cupbearers

Then sought the Prince the Goddess Hebe, she of the cup and youth,

Whose heart was yet a spring of grace, untainted by untruth.

"O Hebe!" cried the Trojan, "By the nectar that we pour,

The child must flee this mountain-peak and reach the mortal floor!

Send word to Persephone, who dwells in the halls of deep-dark stone,

To call her mother, Ceres, where the harvest-grains are grown.

Tell them the flower is ready! Tell them the gate is wide!

For I shall take the burden, if the girl may safely hide."

The message flew on silent wings to the Queen of the Underworld,

While round the peaks of Olympus, the midnight mists were furled.

As Zeus lay deep in honeyed sleep, the Prince led the maiden forth,

Past the sleeping hounds of the threshold, to the cold winds of the North.

There at the world’s steep precipice, where the stars and the mountains meet,

Stood Demeter, the Mother, with the soil beneath her feet.

With a final touch of a brother’s hand, a vow of silent love,

Ganymede cast the girl away from the golden cage above.

Into the Mother’s reaching arms, the snowy goddess fell,

Escaping the gaze of the Thunderer and the mountain where the Great Ones dwell.

Now sits the Prince on the ivory throne, the servant of the jar,

His eyes forever fixed below, upon the earth so far.

He sees his beloved Heleigiri, grown tall by the lakeside reeds,

While the lustful gods of the mountain plot their dark and grasping deeds.

But every morn, before the Sun-God wakes his steeds of flame,

The Prince tips his golden pitcher to protect her sacred name.

He pours no wine, but a cooling veil—the Morning Mist of grey,

To shroud his love in a silver robe and keep the gods away.

Through the vapor he courts her still, a love that needs no word,

The silent vow of a captive prince, by the mortals never heard.

"He gave his freedom for her flight, and his voice for the silence of the mist."

> — Athonemos