In rising fury strained and stiff They lunge across the narrow ground; They topple headlong from the cliff And murderously embraced are drowned. * * * * * Here Peter sits: two spirits reach To sound the knocker at his Gate. They shower forgiveness each on each, Beaming triumphant and elate. But oh, their sweats, their secret fears Lest clod-souled witnesses may rise To set a tingling at their ears And bar the approach to Paradise! THE SIBYL Her hand falls helpless: thought amazements fly Far overhead, they leave no record mark-- Wild swans urged whistling across dazzled sky, Or Gabriel hounds in chorus through the dark. Yet when she prophesies, each spirit swan, Each spectral hound from memory’s windy zones, Flies back to inspire one limb-strewn skeleton Of thousands in her valley of dry bones. There as those life-restored battalions shout, Succession flags and Time goes maimed in flight: From each live gullet twenty swans glide out With hell-packs loathlier yet to amaze the night. Gabriel hounds, a spectral pack hunting the souls of the damned through the air at night: the origin of this belief some find in the strange noise made by the passage of flocks of wild geese or swans. A CRUSADER Death, kindly eager to pretend Himself my servant in the land of spears, Humble allegiance at the end Broke where the homeward track your castle nears, Let his white steed before my red steed press And rapt you from me into quietness. A NEW PORTRAIT OF JUDITH OF BETHULIA She trod the grasses grey with dew, She hugged the unlikely head; Avenging where the warrior Jew Incontinent had fled. The bearded lips writhed ever more At this increase of shame-- Killed by a girl, pretending whore, Gone scatheless as she came! His doom yet loathlier that he knew Hers was no nation-pride, No high religion snatched and slew Where he lay stupefied. Nebuchadnezzar’s duke enticed To pay a megrim’s fee? Assyrian valour sacrificed For a boudoir dignity? “Only for this, that some tall knave Had scorned her welcoming bed, For this, the assault, the stroke, the grave,” Groaned Holofernes’ head. A REVERSAL The old man in his fast car Leaves Achilles lagging, The old man with his long gun Outshoots Ulysses’ bow, Nestor in his botched old age Rivals Ajax bragging, To Nestor’s honeyed courtship Could Helen say “No”? Yet, ancient, since you borrow From youth the strength and speed, Seducing as an equal His playmates in the night, He, robbed, assumes your sceptre, He overgoes your rede, And with his brown and lively hairs Out-prophesies your white.