22.
When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:
23.
‘My father Time is weak and gray _90
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!
24.
‘He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled _95
Over every one but me—
Misery, oh, Misery!’
25.
Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses’ feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye, _100
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.
26.
When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale: _105
27.
Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,
28.
It grew—a Shape arrayed in mail _110
Brighter than the viper’s scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.
29.
On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning’s, lay; _115
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.
30.
With step as soft as wind it passed
O’er the heads of men—so fast
That they knew the presence there, _120
And looked,—but all was empty air.
31.
As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,
As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall. _125