in the night-wind's breath,      "Do as I did," still he saith; With blood his finger drips. 

  

       ASTEROPE     

      Child of the summer cloud, upon thy birth,—      And thou art often born to die again,—      Follow loud groans, that shake the darkening earth, And break the troublous sleep of guilty men. Thou leapest from the thinner streams of air To crags where vapours cling, where ocean frets; No cave so deep, so cold, but thou art there, Wrath in thy smile, and beauty in thy threats. The molten sands beneath thy burning feet Run, as thou runnest, into tubes of glass; Old towers and trees, that proudly stood to meet The whirlwind, let their fair invader pass. The lone ship warring on the Indian sea Bursts into splinters at thy sudden stroke; Siberian mines fired long ago by thee Still waste in helpless flame and barren smoke. Such is thy dreadful pastime, Angel-queen, When swooping headlong from the Armament Thou spreadest fear along the village green, Fear of the day when gravestones shall be rent. And we that fear remember not, that thou, Slewest the Theban maid, who vainly strove To rival Juno, when the lover's vow      Was kept in wedlock by unwilling Jove. And we forget, that when Oileus went From the wronged virgin and the ruined fane, When storms were howling round "Repent, Repent,"      Thy holy arrow pierced the spoiler's brain. To perish all the proud! but chiefly he, Who at the tramp of steeds and cymbal-beat Proclaimed, "I thunder! Why not worship me?"      And thou didst slay him for his counterfeit. 

  

       A DIRGE     

       Naiad, hid beneath the bank By the willowy river-side, Where Narcissus gently sank, Where unmarried Echo died, Unto thy serene repose Waft the stricken Anterôs. Where the tranquil swan is borne, Imaged in a watery glass, Where the sprays of fresh pink thorn Stoop to catch the boats that pass, Where the earliest orchis grows, Bury thou fair Anterôs. Glide we by, with prow and oar:       Ripple shadows off the wave, And reflected on the shore, Haply play about the grave. Folds of summer-light enclose All that once was Anterôs. On a flickering wave we gaze, Not upon his answering eyes:       Flower and bird we scarce can praise, Having lost his sweet replies:       

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