ody sweet
Might never feel a young life beat
And leap within it. Ah, what cry
That mistress e'er heard poet sigh
Could voice thy beauty? Or what chant
Of music be thy ministrant?
Since thou art Music, poesy
Must both thy spouse and increase be!

In the hot dust, where lizards crouch
And pant, he made her bridal couch;
Thither down drew her to his side
And, phantom, taught her to be bride
With words so ardent, looks so hot
She needs must feel what she had not,
Guess herself in beleaguered bed
And throb response. Thus she was wed.
As she whom Zeus loved in a cloud,
So lay she in her lover's shroud,
And o'er her members crept the chill
We know when mist creeps up a hill
Out of the vale at eve. As grows
The ivy, rooting as it goes,
In such a quick close envelope
She lay aswoon, nor guessed the scope
Nor tether of his hot intent,
Nor what to that inert she lent,
Save when at last with half-turned head
And glimmering eyes, encompassed
She saw herself, a bride possest
By ghostly bridegroom, held and prest
To unfelt bosom, saw his mouth
Against her own, which to his drouth
Gave no allay that she could sense,
Nor took of her sweet recompense.
So moved by pity, stirred by rue,
Out of their onslaught young love grew.
Love that with delicate tongues of fire
Can kindle hearts inflamed desire
In her for him who needed it;
And so she claimed and by eyes' wit
Had what she would: and now made war,
Being, as all sweet women are,
Prudes till Love calls them, and then fierce
In love's high calling. Thus with her ears
She fed on love, and to her eyes
Lent deeds of passionate emprise--
Till at the last, the shadowy strife
Ended, she owned herself all wife.

High mating of the mind! O love,
Since this must be, on this she throve!
Remember'd joy, Hypsipyle,
Since this must be, O love, let be!

_1911._

OREITHYIA

Oreithyia, by the North Wind carried
To stormy Thrace from Athens where you tarried
Down by Ilissus all a blowy day
Among the asphodels, how rapt away
Thither, and in what frozen bed wert married?

"I was a King's tall daughter still unwed,
Slim and desirable my locks to shed
Free from the fillet. He my maiden belt
Undid with busy fingers hid but felt,