Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/105

 No! for Zeus is King and Father. Weary nymph and fiery god,

Bend the knee alike before him—he is kind, and he is lord!

Therefore sing how clear-browed Pallas—Pallas, friend of prayerful maid,

Lifted dazzling Daphne lightly, bore her down the breathless glade,

Did the thing that Zeus commanded: so it came to pass that he

Who had chased a white-armed virgin, caught at her, and clasped a tree.

warrigal's lair is pent in bare,

Black rocks at the gorge's mouth;

It is set in ways where Summer strays

With the sprites of flame and drouth;

But when the heights are touched with lights

Of hoar-frost, sleet, and shine,

His bed is made of the dead grass-blade

And the leaves of the windy pine.

Through forest boles the storm-wind rolls,

Vext of the sea-driv'n rain;

And, up in the clift, through many a rift,

The voices of torrents complain.

The sad marsh-fowl and the lonely owl

Are heard in the fog-wreaths grey,

When the warrigal wakes, and listens, and takes

To the woods that shelter the prey.

In the gully-deeps the blind creek sleeps,

And the silver, showery moon

Glides over the hills, and floats, and fills,

And dreams in the dark lagoon;

While halting hard by the station yard,

Aghast at the hut-flame nigh,

The warrigal yells—and flats and fells

Are loud with his dismal cry.