 | Fand and Other Poems |  |
Softly she moved to his side and her arms threw around him and kissed him,
And bare him away, as a billow, that rolls on the surface of summer seas,
Strong with the pulse of the storm, that has ceased, irresistibly lifteth the swimmer,—
So gently the strength of her charm upraised him and bare him away from me:
And around him a rosy light from her radiant shape enwrapped him,
Till beside her his god-like strength seemed even as a green oak tree's,
Overgrown by the bloom of a rose, that spreads the hues of her rapture,
Till more is the glow of the bloss'm than the green rich gloss of the leaves.
And I, for my soul was still half-thralled of her song's enchantment,
Half by the chill of my fear made numb, stood silent and watched him go:
Child and the land he had loved so well, and I, though the last, abandoned,
And the strength of the mightiest soul of men by a shameful craft brought low:
“Yet does it matter?” within me I said, “when he goes and with soul so willing;
Leaps the high sun from the midst of heaven, when his feet to the noon were nigh:”
But, as out of my sight, he passed from the bower, and she to his side close-clinging
I flung myself to the earth with a bitter cry,
And, burying my face in the grass, shaken with sobs I lay.
And bare him away, as a billow, that rolls on the surface of summer seas,
Strong with the pulse of the storm, that has ceased, irresistibly lifteth the swimmer,—
22
And around him a rosy light from her radiant shape enwrapped him,
Till beside her his god-like strength seemed even as a green oak tree's,
Overgrown by the bloom of a rose, that spreads the hues of her rapture,
Till more is the glow of the bloss'm than the green rich gloss of the leaves.
And I, for my soul was still half-thralled of her song's enchantment,
Half by the chill of my fear made numb, stood silent and watched him go:
Child and the land he had loved so well, and I, though the last, abandoned,
And the strength of the mightiest soul of men by a shameful craft brought low:
“Yet does it matter?” within me I said, “when he goes and with soul so willing;
Leaps the high sun from the midst of heaven, when his feet to the noon were nigh:”
But, as out of my sight, he passed from the bower, and she to his side close-clinging
I flung myself to the earth with a bitter cry,
And, burying my face in the grass, shaken with sobs I lay.
| Fand and Other Poems | |