Flashed up the stream, and held with heavy wings

Leda, and curved the neck to reach her lips,

And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is well

To have quickened into glory one supreme,
Swift hour, the century's fiery-hearted bloom,
Which falls, to stand a splendour paramount,
A beacon of high hearts and fates of men,
A flame blown round by clear, contending winds,
Which gladden in the contest and wax strong.
Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town,
Accept a woman's service; these my hands.
Hold not the distaff, ply not at the loom ;

I store from year to year no well-wrought web
For daughter's dowry; wide the web I make,
Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire,

Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths,
Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange.

Oblivion yields before me: ye winged years Which make escape from darkness, the red light

Of a wild dawn upon your plumes, I stand

The mother of the stars and winds of heaven,

Your eastern Eos; cry across the storm!

Through me man's heart grows wider; little town Asleep in silent sunshine and smooth air,

While babe grew man beneath your girdling towers, Wake, wonder, lift the eager head alert,

Snake-like, and swift to strike, while altar-flame

Rises for plighted faith with neighbour town That slept upon the mountain-shelf, and showed

A small white temple in the morning sun.

Oh, ever one way tending you keen prows

Which shear the shadowy waves when stars are

faint

And break with emulous cries unto the dawn,

I gaze and draw you onward; splendid names
Lurk in you, and high deeds, and unachieved
Virtues, and house-o'erwhelming crimes, while life
Leaps in sharp flame ere all be ashes grey.
Thus have I willed it ever since the hour
When that great lord, the one man worshipful,
Whose hands had haled the fierce Hippolyta

Lightly from out her throng of martial maids,

Would grace his triumph, strengthen his large joy
With splendour of the swan-begotten child,
Nor asked a ten years' siege to make acquist
Of all her virgin store. No dream that was,-
The moonlight in the woods, our singing stream,
Eurotas, the sleek panther at my feet,

And on my heart a hero's strong right hand.
O draught of love immortal! Dastard world
Too poor for great exchange of soul, too poor
For equal lives made glorious! O too poor
For Theseus and for Helena !

Yet now

It yields once more a brightness, if no love;
Around me flash the tides, and in my ears

A dangerous melody and piercing-clear
Sing the twin siren-sisters, Death and Life;

I rise and gird my spirit for the close.

Last night Cassandra cried ‘Ruin, ruin, and ruin !' I mocked her not, nor disbelieved; the gloom

Gathers, and twilight takes the unwary world.

Hold me, ye Gods, a torch across the night,

With one long flare blown back o'er tower and

town,

Till the last things of Troy complete themselves :

-Then blackness, and the grey dust of a heart."

ATALANTA.

Milanion, seven years ago this day

You overcame me by a golden fraud,

Traitor, and see I crown your cup with flowers,
With violets and white sorrel from dim haunts,-

A fair libation-ask you to what God?
To Artemis, to Artemis my Queen.

Not by my will did you escape the spear
Though piteous I might be for your glad life,
Husband, and for your foolish love: the Gods
Who heard your vows had care of you: I stooped
Half toward the beauty of the shining thing

Through some blind motion of an instant joy,—
As when our babe reached arms to pluck the moon
A great, round fruit between dark apple-boughs,—
And half, marking your wile, to fling away
Needless advantage, conquer carelessly,

And pass the goal with one light finger-touch