wer'd,--like a spell
Her voice makes strength of mortals pass away,--
"Dost thou not know that I have loved thee well,
And never loved thee better than to-day?

XV.

"Behold, thine eyes are wet, thy cheeks are wan,
Yet art thou born of an immortal sire,
The child of Nemesis and of the Swan;
Thy veins should run with ichor and with fire.
Yet this is thy delight and thy desire,
To love a mortal lord, a mortal child,
To live, unpraised of lute, unhymn'd of lyre,
As any woman pure and undefiled.

XVI.

"Thou art the toy of Gods, an instrument
Wherewith all mortals shall be plagued or blest,
Even at my pleasure; yea, thou shalt be bent
This way and that, howe'er it like me best:
And following thee, as tides the moon, the West
Shall flood the Eastern coasts with waves of war,
And thy vex'd soul shall scarcely be at rest,
Even in the havens where the deathless are.

XVII.

"The instruments of men are blind and dumb,
And this one gift I give thee, to be blind
And heedless of the thing that is to come,
And ignorant of that which is behind;
Bearing an innocent forgetful mind
In each new fortune till I visit thee
And stir thy heart, as lightning and the wind
Bear fire and tumult through a sleeping sea.

XVIII.

"Thou shalt forget Hermione; forget
Thy lord, thy lofty palace, and thy kin;
Thy hand within a stranger's shalt thou set,
And follow him, nor deem it any sin;
And many a strange land wand'ring shalt thou win,
And thou shalt come to an unhappy town,
And twenty long years shalt thou dwell therein,
Before the Argives mar its towery crown.

XIX.

"And of thine end I speak not, but thy name,--
Thy name which thou lamentest,--that shall be
A song in all men's speech, a tongue of flame
Between the burning lips of Poesy;
And the nine daughters of Mnemosyne,
With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine,
Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy!
Yea, for thou shalt outlive the race divine,

XX.

"The race of Gods, for like the sons of men
We Gods have but our season, and go by;
And Cronos pass'd, and Uranus, and then
Shall Zeus and all his children utterly
Pass, and new Gods be born, and reign, and die,--
But thee shall lovers worship evermore
What Gods soe'er usurp the changeful sky,
Or flit to the irremeable shore.

XXI.

"Now sleep and dream not, sleep the long day through,
And the brief watches of the summer night,
A