| Preludium |
| |
| The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc, |
| When fourteen suns had faintly journey’d o’er his dark abode: |
| His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron. |
| Crown’d with a helmet and dark hair the nameless Female stood; |
| A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night, |
| When pestilence is shot from heaven—no other arms she need! |
| Invulnerable tho’ naked, save where clouds roll round her loins |
| Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night; |
| For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise, |
| But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay’d his fierce embrace. |
| |
| ‘Dark Virgin,’ said the hairy Youth, ‘thy father stern, abhorr’d, |
| Rivets my tenfold chains, while still on high my spirit soars; |
| Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion |
| Stalking upon the mountains, and sometimes a whale, I lash |
| The raging fathomless abyss; anon a serpent folding |
| Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs |
| On the Canadian wilds I fold; feeble my spirit folds; |
| For chain’d beneath I rend these caverns: when thou bringest food |
| I howl my joy, and my red eyes seek to behold thy face— |
| In vain! these clouds roll to and fro, and hide thee from my sight. |
| |
| Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy, |
| The hairy shoulders rend the links; free are the wrists of fire; |
| Round the terrific loins he seiz’d the panting, struggling womb; |
| It joy’d: she put aside her clouds and smilèd her first-born smile, |
| As when a block cloud shows its lightnings to the silent deep. |
| |
| Soon as she saw the Terrible Boy, then burst the virgin cry:— |
| |
| ‘I know thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go: |
| Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa, |
| And thou art fall’n to give me life in regions of dark death. |
| On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions |
| Endur’d by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep. |
| I see a Serpent in Canada who courts me to his love, |
| In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru; |
| I see a Whale in the South Sea, drinking my soul away. |
| O what limb-rending pains I feel! thy fire and my frost |
| Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent. |
| This is Eternal Death, and this the torment long foretold!’ |