Page:Ballads, Stevenson, 1890.djvu/26

 The mountain rings and her breast is torn with the voice of despair:

So the lion-like woman idly wearied the air

For awhile, and pierced men's hearing in vain, and wounded their hearts.

But as when the weather changes at sea, in dangerous parts,

And sudden the hurricane wrack unrolls up the front of the sky,

At once the ship lies idle, the sails hang silent on high,

The breath of the wind that blew is blown out like the flame of a lamp,

And the silent armies of death draw near with inaudible tramp:

So sudden, the voice of her weeping ceased; in silence she rose

And passed from the house of her sorrow, a woman clothed with repose,

Carrying death in her breast and sharpening death with her hand.

Hither she went and thither in all the coasts of the land.

They tell that she feared not to slumber alone, in the dead of night,

In accursed places; beheld, unblenched, the ribbon of light9

Spin from temple to temple; guided the perilous skiff,

Abhorred not the paths of the mountain and trod the verge of the cliff;

From end to end of the island, thought not the distance long,

But forth from king to king carried the tale of her wrong.

To king after king, as they sat in the palace door, she came,

Claiming kinship, declaiming verses, naming her name

And the names of all of her fathers; and still, with a heart on the rack,

Jested to capture a hearing and laughed when they jested back:

So would deceive them awhile, and change and return in a breath,

And on all the men of Vaiau imprecate instant death; 14