Canto Xix

But like Beauty's clover-leaf, In the very midst arose Three fair women. I shall never Their majestic forms forget!

Well I knew the first! Her head Glittered with the crescent moon. Haughty, like some ivory statue Sat the goddess on her steed.

And her fluttering tunic fell Loose about her hips and breasts, And the torchlight and the moon Laved with love her snowy limbs.

Marble seemed her very face And like marble cold. How dread Was the pallor and the chill Of that stern and noble front!

But within her dusky eye Smouldered a mysterious, Cruel and enticing fire Which devoured my poor soul.

What a change has come o'er Dian Since in outraged chastity She smote Actæon to a stag As a quarry for his hounds!

Doth she now requite this crime In this gallant company, Riding like some ghostly mortal Through the bleak, nocturnal air?

Late did passion wake in her But for that the stronger burns, And within her eyes its flames Gleam like fiercest brands of hell.

For those vanished times she grieves When the men were beautiful; Now in quantity perchance, She forgets their quality.

At her side a fair one rode-- Fair, but not by Grecian lines Was she fair; for all her features Shone with wondrous Celtic glow.

'Twas Abunda, fairy queen, Whom to know I could not fail By the sweetness of her smile And the madness of her laugh!

Full and rosy was her face, Like the faces limned by Greuze; And from out her heart-shaped mouth Flashed the splendour of her teeth!

All the winds made dalliance With her robe of azure blue, And such shoulders never I In my wildest dreams beheld.

I was almost moved to leap From the window for a kiss; This had been sheer folly, true, Ending in a broken neck!

Ah, and she, she would have laughed If within that awful gulf I had fallen at her feet;-- Laughter such as this I know!

And the third fair phantom, she Who so moved my errant heart,-- Was this but some female fiend Like the other figures twain?

Whether devil this or saint Know I not. With women, ah, None can ever know where saint Ends nor where the fiend begins.

All the magic of the East Lay within her glowing face, And her dress brought memories Of Scheherazadê's tales.

Lips as red as pomegranates And a curved nose lily white, Limbs as slender and as cool As some green oasis-palm.

From her palfrey white she leaned, Flanked by giant Moors who trod Close beside the queenly dame Holding up the golden reins.

Of most royal blood was she, She the Queen of old Judea, She great Herod's lovely wife, She who craved the Baptist's head.

For this crimson crime was she Banned and cursed. Now in this chase Must she ride, a wandering spook, Till the dawn of Judgment Day.

Still within her hands she bears That deep charger with the head Of the Prophet, still she kisses-- Kisses it with fiery lips.

For she loved the Prophet once, Though the Bible naught reveals, Yet her blood-stained love lives on Storied in her people's hearts.

How might else a man declare All the longing of this lady? Would a woman crave the head Of a man she did not love?

She perchance was slightly vexed With her darling, and was moved To behead him, but when she On the trencher saw his head,

Then she wept and lost her wits, Dying in love's madness straight. (What! Love's madness? pleonasm! Love itself is madness still!)

Rising nightly from her grave, To this frenzied hunt she hies, In her hands the gory head Which with feline joy she flings

High into the air betimes, Laughing like a wanton child, Cleverly she catches it Like some idle rubber ball.

As she swept past me she bowed Most coquettishly and looked On me with her melting eyes, So that all my heart was stirred.

Thrice that rout raged up and down Past my window, then did she, Ah, most beautiful of shades! Greet me with her precious smile.

Even when the pageant dimmed And the tumult silent grew In my brain, that smiling face Shone and beckoned on and on.

All that night I tossed and turned My o'erwearied limbs on straw, Musty straw. No feather-beds In Uraka's hut I found!

And I mused: what might this mean, This mysterious beckoning? Why, Oh, why, Herodias, Held thy look such tenderness?