Page:TheBirth of the War-God.djvu/48

36 Now will I hie me to the fatal pile, And ere Heaven's Maids have hailed thee with a smile, Or on my love their winning glances thrown, I will be there, and claim thee for mine own; Yet though I come, my lasting shame will be That I have lived one moment after thee. Ah, how shall I thy funeral rites prepare, Gone soul and body to the viewless air? With thy dear Spring I've seen thee talk and smile. Shaping an arrow for thy bow the while; Where is he now, thy darling friend, the giver Of many a bright sweet arrow for thy quiver? Is he too sent upon death's dreary path, Scorched by the cruel God's inexorable wrath?"

Stricken in spirit by her cries of woe, Like venomed arrows from a mighty bow, A moment fled, and gentle Spring was there, To ask her grief, to soothe her wild despair; She beat her breast more wildly than before, With greater floods her weeping eyes ran o'er— When friends are nigh the spirit finds relief In the full gushing torrent of its grief.

"Turn, gentle friend, thy weeping eyes, and see That dear companion who was all to me— His crumbling dust with which the breezes play. Bearing it idly in their course away— White as the silver feathers of a dove. Is all that 's left me of my murdered love! Now come, my ,—Spring, who was so dear, Longs to behold thee—oh, appear, appear!