The tan upon her face was paint, The manly hair was torn away, Soft was the breast that he had pierced; Beautiful in her death she lay. His was no heart to faint at crime, Tho’ half he wished the deed undone. He pulled the valise from the bed To find what booty he had won. He cut the straps, and pushed within His murderous fingers to their theft. A deathly sweat came o’er his brow, He had no sense nor meaning left. He touched not gold, it was not cold, It was not hard, it felt like flesh. He drew out by the curling hair A young man’s head, and murder’d fresh; A young man’s head, cut by the neck. But what was dreader still to see, Her whom he had slain he saw again, The twain were like as like can be. Brother and sister if they were, Both in one shroud they now were wound,— Across his back and down the stair, Out of the house without a sound. He made his way unto the tarn, The night was dark and still and dank; The ripple chuckling neath the boat Laughed as he drew it to the bank. Upon the bottom of the boat He laid his burden flat and low, And on them laid the square sandstones That round about the margin go. Stone upon stone he weigh’d them down, Until the boat would hold no more; The freeboard now was scarce an inch: He stripp’d his clothes and push’d from shore. All naked to the middle pool He swam behind in the dark night; And there he let the water in And sank his terror out of sight. He swam ashore, and donn’d his dress, And scraped his bloody fingers clean; Ran home and on his victim’s steed Mounted, and never more was seen. But to a comrade ere he died He told his story guess’d of none: So from his lips the crime returned To haunt the spot where it was done. 26 THE ISLE OF ACHILLES (FROM THE GREEK) Τὸν φίλτατόν σοι παῖδ’ ἐμοί τ’, Ἀχιλλέα ὄψει δόμους ναίοντα νησιωτικοὺς Λευκὴν κατ’ ἀκτὴν ἐντὸς Εὐξείνου πόρου. Eur. And. 1250. Voyaging northwards by the western strand Of the Euxine sea we came to where the land Sinks low in salt morass and wooded plain: Here mighty Ister pushes to the main, Forking his turbid flood in channels three To plough the sands with which he chokes the sea.