“But morning’s laugh sets all the crags alight
      Above the baffled tempest:  tree and tree
      Stir themselves from the stupor of the night
      And every strangled branch resumes its right
      To breathe, shakes loose dark’s clinging dregs, waves free
      In dripping glory.  Prone the runnels plunge,
      While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge,
      Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see,
      Each grass-blade’s glory-glitter.  Had I known
      The torrent now turned river?—­masterful
      Making its rush o’er tumbled ravage—­stone
      And stub which barred the froths and foams:  no bull
      Ever broke bounds in formidable sport
      More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm
      Sets him to dare that last mad leap:  report
      Who may—­his fortunes in the deathly chasm
      That swallows him in silence!  Rather turn
      Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled
      Into the broad day-splendour, whom discern
      These eyes but thee, supreme one, rightly called
      Moon-maid in heaven above and, here below,
      Earth’s huntress-queen?  I note the garb succinct
      Saving from smirch that purity of snow
      From breast to knee—­snow’s self with just the tint
      Of the apple-blossom’s heart-blush.  Ah, the bow
      Slack-strung her fingers grasp, where, ivory-linked
      Horn curving blends with horn, a moonlike pair
      Which mimic the brow’s crescent sparkling so—­
      As if a star’s live restless fragment winked
      Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair! 
      What hope along the hillside, what far bliss
      Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss
      Those lucid shoulders?  Must a morn so blithe
      Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss
      Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe
      Its victim, thou unerring Artemis? 
      Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark,
      Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed
      Was bred of liquid marble in the dark
      Depths of the mountain’s womb which ever teemed
      With novel births of wonder?  Not one spark
      Of pity in that steel-grey glance which gleamed
      At the poor hoof’s protesting as it stamped
      Idly the granite?  Let me glide unseen
      From thy proud presence:  well may’st thou be queen
      Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped
      So oft Love’s torch and Hymen’s taper lit
      For happy marriage till the maidens paled
      And perished on the temple-step, assailed
      By—­what except to envy must man’s wit
      Impute that sure implacable release
      Of life from warmth and joy?  But death means peace.”

32.  ASOLANDO:  FANCIES AND FACTS.

    [Dated 1890, but published December 12, 1889. Poetical
    Works, 1889, Vol.  XVII., pp. iv., 131.]