Page:Poems Stoddard.djvu/68

Who, creeping from her lonely couch,
 Unraveled all the slender woof;
Or, with a torch, she climbed the towers,
 To fire the fagots on the roof!

But weaving with a steady hand
 The shadows, whether false or true,
I put aside a doubt which asks
 "Among these phantoms what are you?"

For not with altar, tomb, or urn,
 Or long-haired Greek with hollow shield,
Or dark-prowed ship with banks of oars,
 Or banquet in the tented field;

Or Norman knight in armor clad,
 Waiting a foe where four roads meet;
Or hawk and hound in bosky dell,
 Where dame and page in secret greet;