By the touching lips of countless worshippers, Her body was; and the sun’s golden heat Clothed her in softest flame from head to feet And was her mantle, that she scarcely knew The conscious sense of nakedness. The blue, Far hills and the faint fringes of the sky Shimmered and pulsed in the heat uneasily, And hidden in the grass, cicadas shrill Dizzied the air with ceaseless noise, until A listener might wonder if they cried In his own head or in the world outside. Sometimes she shut her eyelids, and wrapped round In a red darkness, with the muffled sound And throb of blood beating within her brain, Savoured intensely to the verge of pain Her own young life, hoarded it up behind Her shuttered lids, until, too long confined, It burst them open and her prisoned soul Flew forth and took possession of the whole Exquisite world about her and was made A part of it. Meanwhile her maidens played, Singing an ancient song of death and birth, Seed-time and harvest, old as the grey earth, And moving to their music in a dance As immemorial. A numbing trance Came gradually over her, as though Flake after downy-feathered flake of snow Had muffled all her senses, drifting deep And warm and quiet. From this all-but sleep She started into life again; the sky Was full of a strange tumult suddenly— Beating of mighty wings and shrill-voiced fear And the hoarse scream of rapine following near. In the high windlessness above her flew, Dazzlingly white on the untroubled blue, A splendid swan, with outstretched neck and wing Spread fathom wide, and closely following An eagle, tawny and black. This god-like pair Circled and swooped through the calm of upper air, The eagle striking and the white swan still ’Scaping as though by happy miracle The imminent talons. For the twentieth time The furious hunter stooped, to miss and climb A mounting spiral into the height again. He hung there poised, eyeing the grassy plain Far, far beneath, where the girls’ upturned faces Were like white flowers that bloom in open places Among the scarcely budded woods. And they Breathlessly watched and waited; long he lay, Becalmed upon that tideless sea of light, While the great swan with slow and creaking flight Went slanting down towards safety, where the stream Shines through the trees below, with glance and gleam Of blue aerial eyes that seem to give Sense to the sightless earth and make it live. The ponderous wings beat on and no pursuit: Stiff as the painted kite that guards the fruit, Afloat o’er orchards ripe, the eagle yet Hung as at anchor, seeming to forget His uncaught prey, his rage unsatisfied. Still, quiet, dead . . . and then the quickest-eyed Had lost him. Like a star unsphered, a stone Dropped from the vault of heaven, a javelin thrown, He swooped upon his prey. Down, down he came,