NATURA MALIGNA
The Lady of the Hills with crimes untold
Followed my feet, with azure eyes of prey;
By glacier-brink she stood—by cataract-spray—
When mists were dire, or avalanche-echoes rolled.
At night she glimmered in the death-wind cold,5
And if a footprint shone at break of day,
My flesh would quail, but straight my soul would say:
''Tis hers whose hand God's mightier hand doth hold.'
I trod her snow-bridge, for the moon was bright,
Her icicle-arch across the sheer crevasse,10
When lo, she stood!... God made her let me pass,
Then felled the bridge!... Oh, there in sallow light
There down the chasm, I saw her cruel, white,
And all my wondrous days as in a glass.
T. Watts-Dunton.