Mountebanks and ballad-mongers
And all strolling traffickers
Should block up the market corners
With none other name than hers.

Laughed the fool, "To-day, my Folly,
Thou shalt be the king of Ys!"
O wise fool! How long must wisdom
Under motley hold her peace?

Then the storm came down. The valleys
Wailed and ciphered to the dune
Like huge organ pipes; a midnight
Stalked those gala streets at noon;

And the sea rose, rocked and tilted
Like a beaker in the hand,
Till the moon-hung tide broke tether
And stampeded in for land.

All day long with doom portentous,
Shreds of pennons shrieked and flew
Over Ys; and black fear shuddered
On the hearthstone all night through.

Fear, which freezes up the marrow
Of the heart, from door to door
Like a plague went through the city,
And filled up the devil's score;

Filled her tally of the craven,
To the sea-wind's dismal note;
While a panic superstition
Took the people by the throat.

As with morning still the sea rose
With vast wreckage on the tide,
And their pasture rills, grown rivers,
Thundered in the mountain side,

"Vengeance, vengeance, gods to vengeance!"
Rose a storm of muttering;
And the human flood came pouring
To the palace of the king.

"Save, O king, before we perish
In the whirlpools of the sea,
Ys thy city, us thy people!"
Growled the king then, "What would ye?"

But his wolf's eyes talked defiance,
And his bearded mouth meant scorn.
"O our king, the gods are angry;
And no longer to be borne

"Is the shameless face that greets us
From thy windows, at thy side,
Smiling infamy. And therefore
Thou shall take her up, and ride

"Down with her into the sea's mouth,
And there leave her; else we die,
And thy name goes down to story
A new word for cruelty."

Ah, but she was fair, this woman!
Warm and flaxen waved her hair;
Her blue Breton eyes made summer
In that bleak December air.

There she stood whose burning beauty
Made the world's high roof tree ring,
A white poppy tall and wind-blown
In the garden of the king.

Her throat shook, but not with terror;
Her eyes swam, but not with fear;
While her two hands caught and clung to
The one man they had found dear.

"Lord and lover,"--th