Gabriel hounds, a spectral pack hunting the souls of the damned through the air at night: the origin of this belief some find in the strange noise made by the passage of flocks of wild geese or swans.
A CRUSADER
Death, kindly eager to pretend
Himself my servant in the land of spears,
Humble allegiance at the end
Broke where the homeward track your castle nears,
Let his white steed before my red steed press
And rapt you from me into quietness.
A NEW PORTRAIT OF JUDITH OF BETHULIA
She trod the grasses grey with dew,
She hugged the unlikely head;
Avenging where the warrior Jew
Incontinent had fled.
The bearded lips writhed ever more
At this increase of shame—
Killed by a girl, pretending whore,
Gone scatheless as she came!
His doom yet loathlier that he knew
Hers was no nation-pride,
No high religion snatched and slew
Where he lay stupefied.
Nebuchadnezzar’s duke enticed
To pay a megrim’s fee?
Assyrian valour sacrificed
For a boudoir dignity?
“Only for this, that some tall knave
Had scorned her welcoming bed,
For this, the assault, the stroke, the grave,”
Groaned Holofernes’ head.