19. 
When on my foes a sudden terror came,
And they fled, scattering—­lo! with reinless speed
A black Tartarian horse of giant frame
Comes trampling over the dead, the living bleed 2500
Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,
On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,
Sate one waving a sword;—­the hosts recede
And fly, as through their ranks with awful might,
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright; 2505

20. 
And its path made a solitude.—­I rose
And marked its coming:  it relaxed its course
As it approached me, and the wind that flows
Through night, bore accents to mine ear whose force
Might create smiles in death—­the Tartar horse 2510
Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,
And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source
Of waters in the desert, as she said,
’Mount with me, Laon, now’—­I rapidly obeyed.

21. 
Then:  ‘Away! away!’ she cried, and stretched her sword 2515
As ’twere a scourge over the courser’s head,
And lightly shook the reins.—­We spake no word,
But like the vapour of the tempest fled
Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread
Like the pine’s locks upon the lingering blast; 2520
Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread
Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,
As o’er their glimmering forms the steed’s broad shadow passed.

22. 
And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,
His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray, 2525
And turbulence, as of a whirlwind’s gust
Surrounded us;—­and still away! away! 
Through the desert night we sped, while she alway
Gazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,
Crowned with a marble ruin, in the ray 2530
Of the obscure stars gleamed;—­its rugged breast
The steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.

23. 
A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:—­
From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted
Paused, might be heard the murmur of the motion 2535
Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted
By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted
To music, by the wand of Solitude,
That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted
Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood 2540
Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean’s curved flood.

24. 
One moment these were heard and seen—­another
Passed; and the two who stood beneath that night,
Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other;
As from the lofty steed she did alight, 2545
Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light
Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale
With influence strange of mournfullest delight,
My own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail,
And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail. 2550