Unequal, one with other, for a span,

Who should be friends for ever in heaven above

And here on pastoral earth: Arcadian Pan,

And the awless lord of kings and shepherds, Love:

All the sweet strife and strange

With fervid counterchange

Till one fierce wail through many a glade and grove

Rang, and its breath made shiver

The reeds of many a river,

And the warm airs waxed wintry that it clove,

Keen-edged as ice-retempered brand;

Nor might god's hurt find healing save of godlike hand.

30.

As when the jarring gates of thunder ope

Like earthquake felt in heaven, so dire a cry,

So fearful and so fierce—'Give the sword scope!'—

Rang from a daughter's lips, darkening the sky

To the extreme azure of all its cloudless cope

With starless horror: nor the God's own eye

Whose doom bade smite, whose ordinance bade hope,

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