With her witch-whisper o’er ruins, in reeds, She sang low the song of her promise delayed; Beckoned and died, as a finger of smoke Astream over woodland. And was not she History’s heroines white on storm? Remember her summons to valorous deeds. Shone she a lure of the honey-bag swarm, Most was her beam on the knightly: she led For the honours of manhood more than the prize; Waved her magnetical yoke Whither the warrior bled, Ere to the bower of sighs. And shy of her secrets she was; under deeps Plunged at the breath of a thirst that woke The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps. Away over heaven the young heart flew, And caught many lustres, till some one said (Or was it the thought into hearing grew?), _Not thou as commoner men_! Thy stature puffed and it swayed, It stiffened to royal-erect; A brassy trumpet brayed; A whirling seized thy head; The vision of beauty was flecked. Note well the how and the when, The thing that prompted and sped. Thereanon the keen passions clapped wing, Fixed eye, and the world was prey. No simple world of thy greenblade Spring, Nor world of thy flowerful prime On the topmost Orient peak Above a yet vaporous day. Flesh was it, breast to beak: A four-walled windowless world without ray, Only darkening jets on a river of slime, Where harsh over music as woodland jay, A voice chants, Woe to the weak! And along an insatiate feast, Women and men are one In the cup transforming to beast. Magian worship they paid to their sun, Lord of the Purse! Behold him climb. Stalked ever such figure of fun For monarch in great-grin pantomime? See now the heart dwindle, the frame distend; The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat, From a life that reeks of the rotted end; While he—is he pictureable? replete, Gourd-like swells of the rank of the soil, Hollow, more hollow at core. And for him did the hundreds toil Despised; in the cold and heat, This image ridiculous bore On their shoulders for morsels of meat!