Saw the soft blue veils of shadow floating over the billowy grasses
Under the crisp white curling clouds that sailed and trailed through
the melting blue;
Heard once more the quarrel of lovers above them pass, as a
lark-song passes,
Light and bright, till it vanished away in an eye-bright heaven of
silvery dew.

Out of the dark, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the
petals that crowned her,
Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew from the fern at break
of day;
Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright
glory around her,
On through the deserts of hell she came, and the brown air bloomed
with the light of May.

On through the deserts of hell she came; for over the fierce and frozen
meadows
Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;
So she arose from her grave in the darkness, and up through the wailing
fires and shadows,
On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the horrors of death she
came.

Then had she followed him, then had he won her, striking a chord that
should echo for ever,
Had he been steadfast only a little, nor paused in the great
transcendent song;
But ere they had won to the glory of day, he came to the brink of the
flaming river
And ceased, to look on his love a moment, a little moment, and
overlong.

VI

O'er Phlegethon he stood:
Below him roared and flamed
The flood
For utmost anguish named.

And lo, across the night,
The shining form he knew
With light
Swift footsteps upward drew.

Up through the desolate lands
She stole, a ghostly star,
With hands
Outstretched to him afar.

With arms outstretched, she came
In yearning majesty,
The same
Royal Eurydice.

Up through the ghastly dead
She came, with shining eyes
And red
Sweet lips of child-surprise.

Up through the wizened crowds
She stole, as steals the moon
Through clouds
Of flowery mist in June.

He gazed: he ceased to smite
The golden-chorded lyre:
Delight
Consumed his heart with fire.

Though in that deadly land
His task was but half-done,
His hand
Drooped, and the f