Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/44



And it was Paris fully roused me first

From that, my torpor. Flashing on the scene

With nimble feet, this dearest dancer burst

Upon my sight, within her eyes such thirst

As dares and damns, a rose her lips between.

Girdled with jewels, crowned as is a queen,

With Lethe’s poppies dozing in her hair,

Gowned in thin stuffs of silver-dotted sheen,

Humanly sinful, and divinely fair,

She tore the mask from off my best and worst!

I know not how it was she spun that spell

Which made me see, who had been blind so long,

Or with what kiss aroused; nor can I tell

How such a one as she contrived so well

To tempt my weakness and to leave me strong.

Some note there was in her compellant song

That made me man who had been boy till then,

And hurled the idler in among the throng,

Frontward to fight his way with other men,

Scale highest Heaven, and plumb profoundest Hell.