And when she saw the wounded
Serpent make

His path between the waves, her
lips grew pale,

Parted, and quivered: the tears ceased

to break

From her immovable eyes; no voice of wail

Escaped her; but she rose, and, on the gale Loosening her star-bright robe and shadowy hair,

Poured forth her voice; the caverns of the vale

That opened to the ocean caught it there,

And filled with silver sounds the overflowing air.

XIX

She spake in language whose strange melody

In dreadful sympathy-when to the flood

That fair Star fell, he turned and shed his brother's blood.

XXVII

"Thus evil triumphed, and the Spirit of evil,

One Power of many shapes which none may know,

One Shape of many names; the Fiend did revel

In victory, reigning o'er a world of

woe,

For the new race of man went to and fro,

Famished and homeless, loathed and loathing, wild,

And hating good-for his immortal foe

He changed from starry shape, beauteous and mild,

To a dire Snake, with man and beast unreconciled.

XXVIII

"The darkness lingering o'er the dawn of things

Was Evil's breath and life; this made him strong

To soar aloft with overshadowing wings:

And the great Spirit of Good did creep among

The nations of mankind, and every tongue

Cursed and blasphemed him as he passed; for none

Knew good from evil, though their names were hung

In mockery o'er the fane where many a groan

As King and Lord and God the conquering Fiend did own,

XXIX

"The Fiend, whose name was Legion; Death, Decay,

In hope on their own powers began to look,

And Fear, the demon pale, his sanguine shrine forsook.

XXXII

"Then Greece arose, and to its bards and sages,

In dream, the golden-pinioned
Genii came,

Even where they slept amid the night

Which thy breath kindled, Power of holiest name!

Though thou may'st hear that earth is now become

The tyrant's garbage, which to his compeers,

The vile reward of their dishonoured years,

He will dividing give. The victor Fiend,

Omnipotent of yore, now quails, and fears

XXXV

"List, stranger, list, mine is an human form,

Like that thou wearest-touch me -shrink not now!

My hand thou feel'st is not a ghost's, but warm

With human blood.--'Twas many

years ago

Since first my thirsting soul aspired to know

The secrets of this wondrous world, when deep

My heart was pierced with sympathy for woe

Which could not be mine own-and thought did keep,

In dream, unnatural watch beside an infant's sleep.

XXXVI

"Woe could not be mine own, since far from men

I dwelt, a free and happy orphan child,

By the sea-shore, in a deep mountainglen;

And near the waves and through the forests wild

I roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled:

For I was calm while tempest shook the sky :

But, when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled,

I wept sweet tears, yet too tumultuously

For peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy.

XXXVII

"These were forebodings of my fate --- before

A woman's heart beat in my virgin breast,

It had been nurtured in divinest lore: A dying poet gave me books, and blest

With wild but holy talk the sweet

unrest

In which I watched him as he died away-

A youth with hoary hair - a fleeting guest

Of our lone mountains: and this lore did sway

My spirit like a storm, contending there

alway.

XXXVIII

"Thus the dark tale which history doth unfold

I knew, but not, methinks, as others know,

For they weep not; and Wisdom had unrolled

The clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe,-

To few can she that warning vision show

For I loved all things with intense devotion;

So that, when Hope's deep source in fullest flow,

Like earthquake, did uplift the stag

nant ocean

Of human thoughts, mine shook beneath the wide emotion.

XXXIX

"When first the living blood through all these veins