Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/279

ALECTRYON At her discomfort, and a thousand eyes

To shoot irreverent glances. But her conch

Passed the Eubœan coasts, and softly on

By rugged Dêlos, and the gentler slope

Of Naxos, to Icarian waves serene;

Thence sailed betwixt fair Rhodos, on the left,

And windy Carpathos, until it touched

Cyprus; and soon the conscious Goddess found

Her bower in the hollow of the isle;

And wondering nymphs in their white arms received

Their white-armed mistress, bathing her fair limbs

In fragrant dews, twining her lucent hair

With roses, and with kisses soothing her;

Till, glowing in fresh loveliness, she sank

To stillness, tended in the sacred isle,

And hid herself awhile from all her peers.

But angry Arês faced the treacherous Morn,

Spurning the palace tower; nor looked behind,

Disdainful of himself and secret joys

That stript him to the laughter of the Gods.

Toward the East he made, and overhung

The broad Thermaic gulf; then, shunning well

The crags of Lemnos, by Mount Athôs stayed

A moment, mute; thence hurtled sheer away,

Across the murmuring Northern sea, whose waves

Are swollen in billows ruffled with the cuffs

Of endless winds; so reached the shores of Thrace,

And spleen pursued him in the tangled wilds.

Hither at eventide remorseful came

Alectryôn; but the indignant God,

With harsh revilings, changed him to the Cock,

That evermore, remembering his fault,

Heralds with warning voice the coming Day.

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