This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not, When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet, And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet: But I fled--though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled,-- Though they call'd--and perchance but to ask, had I seen Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been: But I stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told, Might translate me in flesh to a brute; and I dreaded To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded With some pity,--and love in that pity perchance-- To a thing not all lovely; for once at glance, Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under The long fenny grass,--with so lovely a breast, Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest? So I roamed in that circle of horrors, and Fear Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near Cluster'd trees for their gloom--not to shelter from heat-- But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet; And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face, In the horrible likeness of demons (that none Could see, like invisible flames in the sun); But grew to one monster that seized on the light, Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night; Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south; Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light; I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close, When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes, That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws, With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws, And whirls of long tails:--I have seen the quick flutter Of fragments dissevered,--and necks stretch'd to utter Long screamings of pain,--the swift motion of blows, And wrestling of arms--to the flight at the close, When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings, And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their wings.