And her fluttering tunic fell Loose about her hips and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, And the torchlight and the moon Laved with love her snowy limbs.

Marble seemed her very face And like marble cold. How dread Was the pallor and the chill Of that stern and n.o.ble front!

But within her dusky eye Smouldered a mysterious, Cruel and enticing fire Which devoured my poor soul.

What a change has come o'er Dian Since in outraged chast.i.ty She smote Actaeon to a stag As a quarry for his hounds!

Doth she now requite this crime In this gallant company, Riding like some ghostly mortal Through the bleak, nocturnal air?

Late did pa.s.sion wake in her But for that the stronger burns, And within her eyes its flames Gleam like fiercest brands of h.e.l.l.

For those vanished times she grieves When the men were beautiful; Now in quant.i.ty perchance, She forgets their quality.

At her side a fair one rode-- Fair, but not by Grecian lines Was she fair; for all her features Shone with wondrous Celtic glow.

'Twas Abunda, fairy queen, Whom to know I could not fail By the sweetness of her smile And the madness of her laugh!

Full and rosy was her face, Like the faces limned by Greuze; And from out her heart-shaped mouth Flashed the splendour of her teeth!

All the winds made dalliance With her robe of azure blue, And such shoulders never I In my wildest dreams beheld.

I was almost moved to leap From the window for a kiss; This had been sheer folly, true, Ending in a broken neck!

Ah, and she, she would have laughed If within that awful gulf I had fallen at her feet;-- Laughter such as this I know!

And the third fair phantom, she Who so moved my errant heart,-- Was this but some female fiend Like the other figures twain?

Whether devil this or saint Know I not. With women, ah, None can ever know where saint Ends nor where the fiend begins.

All the magic of the East Lay within her glowing face, And her dress brought memories Of Scheherazade's tales.

Lips as red as pomegranates And a curved nose lily white, Limbs as slender and as cool As some green oasis-palm.

From her palfrey white she leaned, Flanked by giant Moors who trod Close beside the queenly dame Holding up the golden reins.

Of most royal blood was she, She the Queen of old Judea, She great Herod's lovely wife, She who craved the Baptist's head.

For this crimson crime was she Banned and cursed. Now in this chase Must she ride, a wandering spook, Till the dawn of Judgment Day.

Still within her hands she bears That deep charger with the head Of the Prophet, still she kisses-- Kisses it with fiery lips.

For she loved the Prophet once, Though the Bible naught reveals, Yet her blood-stained love lives on Storied in her people's hearts.

How might else a man declare All the longing of this lady?

Would a woman crave the head Of a man she did not love?

She perchance was slightly vexed With her darling, and was moved To behead him, but when she On the trencher saw his head,

Then she wept and lost her wits, Dying in love's madness straight.

(What! Love's madness? pleonasm!

Love itself is madness still!)

Rising nightly from her grave, To this frenzied hunt she hies, In her hands the gory head Which with feline joy she flings

High into the air betimes, Laughing like a wanton child, Cleverly she catches it Like some idle rubber ball.

As she swept past me she bowed Most coquettishly and looked On me with her melting eyes, So that all my heart was stirred.

Thrice that rout raged up and down Past my window, then did she, Ah, most beautiful of shades!

Greet me with her precious smile.

Even when the pageant dimmed And the tumult silent grew In my brain, that smiling face Shone and beckoned on and on.

All that night I tossed and turned My o'erwearied limbs on straw, Musty straw. No feather-beds In Uraka's hut I found!

And I mused: what might this mean, This mysterious beckoning?

Why, Oh, why, Herodias, Held thy look such tenderness?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CANTO XX

Sunrise. Golden arrows dart Through the pallid ranks of mist Till they redden as with wounds And dissolve in shining light.

Now hath triumph come to Day And the gleaming conqueror In his blinding glory treads O'er the ridges and the peaks.

All the merry bands of birds Twitter in their hidden nests, And the scent of plants arises Like a psalm of odours rare.

At the early glint of day Down the valley we had gone.

While Lascaro dumb and dour Followed up the bear-tracks dim,

I with musings sought to slay Time, but tired soon I grew Of my musings,--drear, ah, drear!

Were my thoughts and void of joy.

Weary, joyless, down I sank On a bank of softest moss 'Neath a great and kingly ash Where a little spring gushed forth.

This with wondrous voice beguiled All my wayward mood until Thought and thinking vanished both In the music of the spring.

Mighty longings seized me then, Madness, dreams and death-desires, Longings for those splendid queens Riding in that ghostly throng.

Oh, ye lovely shapes of night, Banished by the rose of dawn, Whither, tell me, have ye fled, Whither have ye flown by day?

Somewhere 'neath old temple-ruins In the wide Romagna hid, It is said Diana flees The dominion of the Christ.

Only in the midnight gloom, Dare she venture forth, but then How she joys the merry chase And the pagan sports of old!