With what blossomless flowerage of sea-foam and blood-coloured foliage inwound

It shall crown as a heifer's for slaughter the forehead for marriage uncrowned?

[Ant. 5.

How the veils and the wreaths that should cover

The brows of the bride

810

Shall be shed by the breath of what lover

And scattered aside?

With a blast of the mouth of what bridegroom the crowns shall be cast from her hair,

And her head by what altar made humble be left of them naked and bare?

[Pg 47]

[Str. 6.

At a shrine unbeloved of a God unbeholden a gift shall be given for the land,

That its ramparts though shaken with clamour and horror of manifold waters may stand;

That the crests of its citadels crowned and its turrets that thrust up their heads to the sun

May behold him unblinded with darkness of waves overmastering their bulwarks begun.

[Ant. 6.

As a bride shall they bring her, a prey for the bridegroom, a flower for the couch of her lord;

They shall muffle her mouth that she cry not or curse them, and cover her eyes from the sword.

820

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