In her hands she evermore Bears the charger with the Baptist’s Head upon it, which she kisses,-- Yes, the head she kisses wildly. For she once loved John the Baptist; In the Bible ’tis not written, Yet in popular tradition Lives Herodias’ bloody love. Otherwise there’s no explaining That strange fancy of the lady,-- Would a woman ever ask for That man’s head for whom she cared not? She was somewhat angry, may be, With him,--had him, too, beheaded; But when she upon the charger Saw the much-loved head lie lifeless, Sore she wept, and lost her senses, And she died of love’s delirium. (Love’s delirium! Pleonasm! Love must always be delirium!) Every night arising, bears she As I’ve said, the bloody head In her hand as she goes hunting, Yet with foolish woman’s fancy She at times the head hurls from her Through the air, with childish laughter, And then catches it again Very nimbly, like a plaything. And as she was riding by me, On me look’d she, and she nodded So coquettishly and fondly, That my inmost heart was shaken. Three times up and downward moving The procession pass’d, and three times Did the lovely apparition Greet me, as she rode before me. When the train at last had faded, And the tumult was extinguish’d, Still that loving salutation Glow’d within my inmost brain. And throughout the livelong night I my weary limbs kept tossing On the straw (for feather beds Were not in Uraca’s cottage), And methought: What meaning was there In that strange, mysterious nodding? Wherefore didst thou gaze upon me With such tenderness, Herodias? CAPUT XX. ’Twas the sunrise. Golden arrows Shot against the white mist fiercely, Which turn’d red, as though sore wounded, And in light and glory melted. Finally the victory’s won, And the day, the triumphator, Stood, in full and beaming splendour, On the summit of the mountain. All the birds in noisy chorus Twitter’d in their secret nests, And a smell of herbs arose too, Like a concert of sweet odours. At the earliest dawn of morning To the valley we descended, And whilst friend Lascaro follow’d On the traces of the bear, I the time to kill attempted With my thoughts, and yet this thinking Made me at the last quite weary, And a little mournful even. Weary, then, and mournful sank I On the soft moss-bank beside me. Under yonder mighty ash-tree, Where the little streamlet flow’d, Which, with its mysterious plashing So mysteriously befool’d me, That all thoughts and power of thinking From my spirit pass’d away. And a raging yearning seized me For a dream, for death, for madness, For that woman-rider, whom I In the spirit-march had seen.