| |
| HEARD ye the arrow hurtle in the sky? | |
| Heard ye the dragon monster’s deathful cry? | |
| In settled majesty of calm disdain, | |
| Proud of his might, yet scornful of the slain, | |
| The heavenly archer stands,—no human birth, | 5 |
| No perishable denizen of earth: | |
| Youth blooms immortal in his beardless face, | |
| A god in strength, with more than godlike grace; | |
| All, all divine,—no struggling muscle glows, | |
| Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows, | 10 |
| But animate with deity alone, | |
| In deathless glory lives the breathing stone. | |
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| Bright kindling with a conqueror’s stern delight, | |
| His keen eye tracks the arrow’s fateful flight; | |
| Burns his indignant cheek with vengeful fire, | 15 |
| And his lip quivers with insulting ire: | |
| Firm fixed his tread, yet light, as when on high | |
| He walks the impalpable and pathless sky: | |
| The rich luxuriance of his hair, confined | |
| In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind, | 20 |
| That lifts in sport his mantle’s drooping fold | |
| Proud to display that form of faultless mould. | |
| |
| Mighty Ephesian! with an eagle’s flight | |
| Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light, | |
| Viewed the bright conclave of Heaven’s blest abode, | 25 |
| And the cold marble leapt to life a god: | |
| Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran, | |
| And nations bowed before the work of man. | |
| For mild he seemed, as in Elysian bowers, | |
| Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours; | 30 |
| Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway | |
| Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day; | |
| Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep | |
| By holy maid on Delphi’s haunted steep, | |
| Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove, | 35 |
| Too fair to worship, too divine to love. | |
| |
| Yet on that form in wild delirious trance | |
| With more than reverence gazed the maid of France, | |
| Day after day the love-sick dreamer stood | |
| With him alone, nor thought it solitude! | 40 |
| To cherish grief, her last, her dearest care, | |
| Her one fond hope,—to perish of despair. | |
| Oft as the shifting light her sight beguiled, | |
| Blushing she shrunk, and thought the marble smiled: | |
| Oft breathless listening heard, or seemed to hear, | 45 |
| A voice of music melt upon her ear. | |
| Slowly she waned, and cold and senseless grown, | |
| Closed her dim eyes, herself benumbed to stone. | |
| Yet love in death a sickly strength supplied: | |
| Once more she gazed, then feebly smiled and died. | 50 |
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