Borgia, supreme from birth [_Ep._ 3.
As loveliest born on earth
Since earth bore ever women that were fair;
Scarce known of her own house
If daughter or sister or spouse;
Who holds men's hearts yet helpless with her hair;
The direst of divine things made,
Bows down her amorous aureole half suffused with shade. 120

As red the fire-scathed royal northland bloom, [_Str._ 4.
That left our story a name
Dyed through with blood and flame
Ere her life shrivelled from a fierier doom
Than theirs her priests bade pass from earth in fire
To slake the thirst of God their Lord's desire:
As keen the blast of love-enkindled fate
That burst the Paduan tyrant's guarded gate:
As sad the softer moan
Made one with music's own 130
For one whose feet made music as they fell
On ways by loveless love made hot from hell:
But higher than these and all the song thereof
The perfect heart of love,
The heart by fraud and hate once crucified,
That, dying, gave thanks, and in thanksgiving died.

Above the windy walls that rule the Rhine [_Ant._ 4.
A noise of eagles' wings
And wintry war-time rings,
With roar of ravage trampling corn and vine 140
And storm of wrathful wassail dashed with song,
And under these the watch of wreakless wrong,
With fire of eyes anhungered; and above
These, the light of the stricken eyes of love,
The faint sweet eyes that follow
The wind-outwinging swallow,
And face athirst with young wan yearning mouth
Turned after toward the unseen all-golden south,
Hopeless to see the birds back ere life wane,
Or the leaves born again; 150
And still the might and music mastering fate
Of life more strong than death and love than hate.

In spectral strength biform [_Ep._ 4.
Stand the twin sons of storm
Transfigured by transmission of one hand
That gives the new-born time
Their semblance more sublime
Than once it lightened over each man's land;
There Freedom's winged and wide-mouthed hound, 159
And here our high Dictator, in his son discrowned.

What strong-limbed shapes of kindred throng round these [_Str._ 5.
Before, between, behind,
Sons born of one man's mind,
Fe