Iii

So spake she her first utterance on the rack. It softened torment, in the funeral hues Round wan Romance at ebb, but drove her back To listen to herself, herself accuse Harshly as Love’s imperial cause allowed. She meant to grovel, and her lover praised So high o’er the condemnatory crowd, That she perforce a fellow phoenix blazed.

The picture was of hand fast joined to hand, Both pushed from angry skies, their grasp more pledged Under the threatened flash of a bright brand At arm’s length up, for severing action edged. Why, then Love’s Court of Honour contemplate; And two drowned shorecasts, who, for the life esteemed Above their lost, invoke an advocate In Passion’s purity, thereby redeemed.

Redeemed, uplifted, glimmering on a throne, The woman stricken by an arrow falls. His advocate she can be, not her own, If, Traitress to thy sex! one sister calls. Have we such scenes of drapery’s mournfulness On Beauty’s revelations, witched we plant, Over the fair shape humbled to confess, An angel’s buckler, with loud choiric chant.