on the might of the
Rulers. 
   ’Mystical fish of the seas, dread Queen whom AEthiops honour,
Whelming the land in thy wrath, unavoidable, sharp as the sting-ray,
Thou, and thy brother the Sun, brain-smiting, lord of the sheepfold,
Scorching the earth all day, and then resting at night in thy bosom,
Take ye this one life for many, appeased by the blood of a maiden,
Fairest, and born of the fairest, a queen, most priceless of victims.’ 
   Thrice they spat as they went by the maid:  but her mother delaying
Fondled her child to the last, heart-crushed; and the warmth of her weeping
Fell on the breast of the maid, as her woe broke forth into wailing. 
   ’Daughter! my daughter! forgive me!  Oh curse not the murderess!  Curse
not! 
How have I sinned, but in love?  Do the gods grudge glory to mothers? 
Loving I bore thee in vain in the fate-cursed bride-bed of Cepheus,
Loving I fed thee and tended, and loving rejoiced in thy beauty,
Blessing thy limbs as I bathed them, and blessing thy locks as I combed them;
Decking thee, ripening to woman, I blest thee:  yet blessing I slew thee! 
How have I sinned, but in love?  Oh swear to me, swear to thy mother,
Never to haunt me with curse, as I go to the grave in my sorrow,
Childless and lone:  may the gods never send me another, to slay it! 
See, I embrace thy knees—­soft knees, where no babe will be fondled—­
Swear to me never to curse me, the hapless one, not in the death-pang.’ 
   Weeping she clung to the knees of the maid; and the maid low answered—­
‘Curse thee!  Not in the death-pang!’ The heart of the lady was lightened. 
Slowly she went by the ledge; and the maid was alone in the darkness. 
   Watching the pulse of the oars die down, as her own died with them,
Tearless, dumb with amaze she stood, as a storm-stunned nestling
Fallen from bough or from eave lies dumb, which the home-going herdsman
Fancies a stone, till he catches the light of its terrified eyeball. 
So through the long long hours the maid stood helpless and hopeless,
Wide-eyed, downward gazing in vain at the black blank darkness. 
Feebly at last she began, while wild thoughts bubbled within her—­
’Guiltless I am:  why thus, then?  Are gods more ruthless than mortals? 
Have they no mercy for youth? no love for the souls who have loved them? 
Even as I loved thee, dread sea, as I played by thy margin,
Blessing thy wave as it cooled me, thy wind as it breathed on my forehead,
Bowing my head to thy tempest, and opening my heart to thy children,
Silvery fish, wreathed shell, and the strange lithe things of the water,
Tenderly casting them back, as they gasped on the beach in the sunshine,
Home to their mother—­in vain! for mine sits childless in anguish! 
O false sea! false sea!  I dreamed what I dreamed of thy goodness;
Dreamed of a smile in thy gleam, of a laugh in the