Page:TheBirth of the War-God.djvu/55

Alas! her weary vow has caused to fade
The lovely colours that adorned the Maid;
Pale is her hand, and her long finger-tips
Steal no more splendour from her paler lips,
Or, from the ball which in her play would rest,
Made bright and fragrant, on her perfumed breast;
Rough with the Sacred Grass those hands would be,
And worn with resting on her rosary.
Cold earth her couch—her canopy the skies—
Pillowed upon her arm the Lady lies;
She who before was wont to rest her head
In the soft luxury of a sumptuous bed,
Vext by no troubles as she slumbered there,
But sweet flowers slipping from her loosened hair.
The Maid put off, but only for awhile,
Her passioned glances and her witching smile,
She lent the fawn her moving, melting gaze,
And the fond creeper all her winning ways.
The trees that blossomed on that lonely mount
She watered daily from the neighbouring fount.
If she had been their nursing mother, she
Could not have tended them more carefully;
(Not e'en her boy—her own bright boy—shall stay
Her love for them; her first dear children they).
Her gentleness had made the fawns so tame.
To her kind hand for fresh sweet grain they came,
And let the Maid before her friends compare
Her own with eyes that shone as softly there.

Then came the Hermits of the Holy Wood
To see the Votaress in her solitude;