"The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime

On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God:
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod.

“We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life
In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,

"And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms,
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,

My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,
Contented there to die!

"And there he died: and when I heard my name
Sigh'd forth with life I would not brook my fear
Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his fame.
What else was left? look here!"

(With that she tore her robe apart, and half
The polish'd argent of her breast to sight
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,
Showing the aspick's bite)

"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name forever!-lying robed and crown'd,
Worthy a Roman spouse."

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range

Struck by all passion, did fall down and glance From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change Of liveliest utterance.

When she made pause I knew not for delight;

Because with sudden motion from the ground She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light The interval of sound.

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;
As once they drew into two burning rings
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts
Of captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled.

Then I heard

A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn
And singing clearer than the crested bird,
That claps his wings at dawn.

"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel

From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell, Far-heard beneath the moon.

ir

Bring the dance and song,

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower.

From craggy nonows pouring, late and soon, Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell, Far-heard beneath the moon.

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel

Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine: All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell With spires of silver shine."

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves
The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the door
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves

Of sound on roof and floor

Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied

To where he stands, - so stood I, when that flow

--

Of music left the lips of her that died

To save her father's vow;

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,

A maiden pure; as when she went along From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light, With timbrel and with song.

My words leapt forth: "Heaven heads the count of crimes With that wild oath." She render'd answer high: "Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times

I would be born and die.

"Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,
Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.

"My God, my land, my father - these did move

Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love Down to a silent grave.

เ

"And I went mourning, ‘No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers' emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower.