Ii

Through marching scores of winters racked she lay, Beneath a hoar-frost’s brilliant crust, Whereon the jewelled flies that drained Her breasts disported in a glistering spray; She, the land’s fount of fruits, enclosed with dust; By good and evil angels fed, sustained In part to curse, in part to pray, Sucking the dubious rumours, till men saw The throbs of her charged heart before the Just, So worn the harrowed surface had become: And still they deemed the dance above was Law, Amort all passion in a rebel dumb.