No cowardice or fear she knows,
But, as once more she girds, there grows
An unresignèd hopelessness
From memory of former stress.
Head bent, she muses whilst he waits:
How with such weapons dint his plates?
How quell this vast and sleepless giant
Calmly, immortally defiant,
How fell him, bind him, and control
With a silver cord and a golden bowl?
FOR MUSIC
Death in the cold grey morning
Came to the man where he lay;
And the wind shivered, and the tree shuddered
And the dawn was grey.
And the face of the man was grey in the dawn,
And the watchers by the bed
Knew, as they heard the shaking of the leaves,
That the man was dead.
THE FUGITIVE
Flying his hair and his eyes averse,
Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.
How could our song his charms rehearse?
Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.
High on a down we found him last,
Shy as a hare, he fled as fast;
How could we clasp him or ever he passed?
Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.
How could we cling to his limbs that shone,
Ravish his cheeks' red gonfalon,
Or the wild-skin cloak that he had on?
Fleet are his feet and his heart apart.