Bore in him likewise as divine a child;

But born not less for crowns of love and mirth,

Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild,

The leaf that girds about with gentler girth

The brow steel-bound in battle, and the wild

Soft spray that flowers above

The flower-soft hair of love;

And the white lips of wayworn winter smiled

And grew serene as spring's

When with stretched clouds like wings

Or wings like drift of snow-clouds massed and piled

The godlike giant, softening, spread

A shadow of stormy shelter round the new-born head.

3.

And o'er it brightening bowed the wild-haired hour,

And touched his tongue with honey and with fire,

And breathed between his lips the note of power

That makes of all the winds of heaven a lyre

Whose strings are stretched from topmost peaks that tower

To softest springs of waters that suspire,

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