"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."