Beauty of white limbs that gleam
Rosy through the running stream;
Or bright-shaken hair, that showers
Starlight in the sunset's beam.

Till, far in the forest, sleeping
Like a luminous darkness, lay
A deep water, wherein, leaping,
Fell the Fountain of the Fay,
With a singing, sighing sound,
As of spirit things around,
Musically laughing, weeping
In the air and underground.

Not a ripple o'er it merried:
Like the round moon 'neath a cloud,
In its rocks the lake lay buried:
And strange creatures seemed to crowd
Its dark depths; vague limbs and eyes
To the surface seemed to rise
Spawn-like and, as formless, ferried
Through the water, shadow-wise.

Foliage things with human faces,
Demon-dreadful, pale and wild
As the forms the lightning traces
On the clouds the storm has piled,
Seeming now to draw to land,
Now away--Then up the strand
Comes a woman; and she places
On his arm a spray-white hand.

Ah! an untold world of sorrow
Were her eyes; her hair, a place
Whence the moon its gold might borrow;
And a dream of ice her face:
'Round her hair and throat in rims
Pearls of foam hung; and through whims
Of her robe, as breaks the morrow,
Shone the rose-light of her limbs.

Who could help but look with gladness
On such beauty? though within,
Deep within the beryl sadness
Of those eyes, the serpent sin
Coil?--When she hath placed her cheek
Chilly upon his, and weak,
With love longing and its madness,
Is his will grown, then she'll speak:

"Dost thou love me?"--"If surrender
Is to love thee, then I love."--
"Hast no fear then?"--"In the splendor
Of thy gaze who knows thereof?
Yet I fear--I fear to lose
Thee, thy love!"--"And thou dost choose
Aye to be my heart's defender?"--
"Take me. I am thine to use."

"Follow then. Ah, love, no lowly
Home I give thee."--With fixed eyes,
To the water's edge she slowly
Drew him.... And he did surmise
'Twas her lips on his, until
O'er his face the foam closed chill,
Whisp'ring, and the lake unholy
Rippled, rippled and was still.

At Nineveh

Written for my friend Walter S. Mathews.

There was a princess once, who loved the slave
Of an Assyrian king, her father; known
At Nineveh as Hadria; o'er whose grave
The sands of centuries have l