Page:TheBirth of the War-God.djvu/22

10 But still the Monarch durst not, could not brine: His child, unsought, to Heaven's supremest King; But as a good man fears his earnest prayer Should rise unheeded, and with thoughtful care Seeks for some friend his eager suit to aid— Thus great in his awe delayed.

Since the sad moment when his gentle bride In the full glory of her beauty died, The mournful in the holy grove Had dwelt in solitude, and known not love: High on that hill where musky breezes throw Their balmy odours o'er eternal snow, Where Heavenly Minstrels pour their notes divine And rippling laves the mountain pine. Clad in a coat of skin all rudely wrought He lived for prayer and solitary thought; The faithful band that served the Hermit's will Lay in the hollows of the rocky hill. Where from the clefts the dark bitumen flowed; Tinted with mineral dyes their bodies glowed. Their garb, rude mantles of the birch-tree's rind, With bright red garlands was their hair entwined ; The holy Bull before his master's feet Shook the hard-frozen earth with echoins: feet. And as he heard the lion's roarins; swell In distant thunder from the rocky dell. In angry pride he raised his voice of fear And from the mountain drove the startled deer. Bright fire—a shape the God would sometimes wear Who takes eight various forms—was glowing there;