Women and babes and men slaughtered Of three death wounds—the flames consusedly.

had ate the other!

Since then I have no longer been XLVII

a mother, Beside the fountain in the market-place

But I am Pestilence; hither and Dismounting, I beheld those corpses

thither stare

I fit about; that I may slay and With horny eyes upon each other's

smother ;face,

All lips which I have kissed must And on the earth, and on the surely wither, vacant air,

But Death's—if thou art he, we'll go to And upon me, close to the waters

work together! where I stooped to slake my thirst ;-- I shrank to taste,

" What seek'st thou here? The For the salt bitterness of blood was moonlight comes in flashes, there;

The dew is rising dankly from the But tied the steed beside, and sought dellin haste

'Twill moisten her! and thou shalt If any yet survived amid that ghastly see the gashes waste.

In my sweet boy, now full of

worms—but tell XLVIII

First what thou seek'st.”- _“I seek No living thing was there beside one

for food."--"'Tis well,

Thou shalt have food ; Famine, my Whom I found wandering in the

paramour, streets, and she

Waits for us at the feast - cruel Was withered from a likeness of aught

and fell human

Is Famine, but he drives not from Into a fiend, by some strange misery :

his door Soon as she heard my steps, she Those whom these lips have kissed, leaped on me,

alone. No more, no more!” And glued her burning lips to mine,

and laughed
With a loud, long, and frantic

As thus she spake, she grasped me laugh of glee,

with the strength And cried, “Now, Mortal, thou hast

Of madness, and by many a ruined deeply quaffed

hearth The Plague's blue kisses--soon millions

She led, and over many a corpse : shall pledge the draught !

at length

a lone hut, where, on XLIX

the earth My

is Pestilence - this Which made its floor, she in her bosom dry

ghastly mirth, Once fed two babes-a sister and Gathering from all those homes now a brother

desolate, When I came home, one in the blood Had piled three heaps of loaves, did lie

making a dearth S

woman

LI

We came

name

M

IX

fed away.

VIT

X

Which the soul dreams or knows, and, when the day

They bore her to a bark, and the Shone on her awful frenzy, from

swift stroke the sight,

Of silent rowers clove the blue Where like a Spirit in fleshly chains

moonlight seas, she lay

Until upon their path the morning Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant broke;

They anchored then where, be

there calm or breeze, The gloomiest of the drear Sym

plegades Her madness was a beam of light, a

Shakes with the sleepless surge ;-the power

Ethiop there
Which dawned through the rent

Wound his long arms around her, soul; and words it gave,

and with knees Gestures, and looks, such as in whirl

Like iron clasped her feet, and winds bore

plunged with her (Which might not be withstood, Among the closing waves out of the whence none could save)

boundless air. All who approached their sphere,

like some calm wave Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms

“Swift as an eagle stooping from the beneath;

plain And sympathy made each attend

Of morning light into some shadowy ant slave

wood, Fearless and free, and they began to He plunged through the green silence breathe

of the main, Deep curses, like the voice of flames far

Through many a cavern which the underneath.

eternal flood Had scooped as dark lairs for its

monster brood;

And among mighty shapes which fled The King felt pale upon his noonday in wonder, throne :

And among mightier shadows which At night two slaves he to her

pursued chamber sent;

Ilis heels, he wound; until the dark One was a green and wrinkled eunuch,

rocks under grown

He touched a golden chain-a sound From human shape into an instru

arose like thunder. ment Of all things ill-distorted, bowed, and bent;

“A stunning clang of massive bolts The other was a wretch from infancy redoubling Made dumb by poison, who nought Beneath the deep-a burst of waters knew or meant

VIII

XI

XIV

XII

a

of sea,

XV

Through which there shone the
emerald beams of heaven,

“ The fiend of madness which had Shot through the lines of many waves

made its prey inwoven

Of my poor heart was lulled to Like sunlight through acacia woods

sleep awhile : at even,

There was an interval of many a day, Through which his way the diver

And a sea-eagle brought me food having cloven

the while, Passed like a spark sent up out of a

Whose nest was built in that unburning oven.

trodden isle, And who to be the gaoler had been

taught ". And then,” she said, “he laid me

Of that strange dungeon; as in a cave

friend whose smile Above the waters, by that chasm

Like light and rest at morn and even

is sought A fountain round and vast, in which that wild bird was to me, till madness the wave,

misery brought
Imprisoned, boiled and leaped per-

petually,
Down which, one moment resting,
he did flee,

“The misery of a madness slow and Winning the adverse depth; that

creeping,

Which made the earth seem fire, spacious cell Like an hupaithric temple wide

the sea seem air, and high,

And the white clouds of noon, which Whose aëry dome is inaccessible,

oft were sleeping

In the blue heaven so beautiful and Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams sell.

fair, Like hosts of ghastly shadows

hovering there; “ Below, the fountain's brink was

And the sea-eagle looked a fiend who

bore
richly paven
With the deep's wealth, coral and

Thy mangled limbs for food !-

Thus all things were pearl, and sand Like spangling gold, and purple shells

Transformed into the agony which I
engraven
With mystic legends by no mortal Even as a poisoned robe around my

bosom's core.
hand,
Left there when, thronging to the

moon's command, The gathering waves rent the Hesper. · Again I knew the day and night ian gate

fast fleeing, Of mountains, and on such bright The eagle and the fountain and the

floor did stand Columns, and shapes like statues, and Another frenzy came—there seemed the state

a being Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in Within me--a strange load my her heart create.

heart did bear,

XIII

wore

XVI

air;