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XXVII
BACCHANTE DOLOROSA.
Under a poplar, in that mournful climeWhose shadows change not ever, but the stars
Shine out, the cold and melancholy Lars
Of the abode of Gods of the elder time,
Pale sat Agave; weeping for the crime
That stained with her own blood the Bromian cars:
A sistrum at her feet, whose golden bars
Bore long unreckoned tears, like frosty rime.
E'en as some moonlit marble, seemed she there;
That Phidias might have wrought, on the same day
When his unresting thought with Jove's could share:
Still was the place, save when, as in the spray
Of the Pine forest moves the fitful air,
Stole up a low sad voice and sighed away.
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