Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/55

 O women, O sweet people of this land, O goodly city and pleasant ways thereof, And woods with pasturing grass and great well-heads, And hills with light and night between your leaves, And winds with sound and silence in your lips, And earth and water and all immortal things, I take you to my witness what I am. There is a god about me like as fire, Sprung whence, who knoweth, or who hath heart to say? A god more strong than whom slain beasts can soothe, Or honey, or any spilth of blood-like wine, Nor shall one please him with a whitened brow Nor wheat nor wool nor aught of plaited leaf. For like my mother am I stung and slain, And round my cheeks have such red malady And on my lips such fire and foam as hers. This is that Ate out of Amathus That breeds up death and gives it one for love. She hath slain mercy, and for dead mercy's sake (Being frighted with this sister that was slain) Flees from before her fearful-footed shame, And will not bear the bending of her brows And long soft arrows flown from under them As from bows bent. Desire flows out of her As out of lips doth speech: and over her Shines fire, and round her and beneath her fire. She hath sown pain and plague in all our house,