Page:The poems of Robert W. Sterling, 1916.djvu/31

The Burial of Sophocles Her wondrous soul, her wondrous, grieving soul

Captur'd and fill'd us.—Oh, how fevrous then

(When we had forfeited the passing toll

Of tears, that Love itself exacts from men

On such an errand) did we take the road,

And by Cephisus' 'sleepless fountains' bore

On the dead singer of Colonus fair,

Yon kindly last abode

Of the royal Theban martyr, who of yore

Curs'd a false son and dying triumph'd there.

Ah! Fancy loves to weave at such an hour

A faery web of false resemblances.—

And who hath strength to curb her perilous power

Of blind divining? Many phantasies

Made riot in our thought and seem'd to bring

The living children of his poesy

Winging from out the night to claim a part

In all our sorrowing:

While the lorn gale out of the Northern sky

Sped its far, sullen mutterings to our heart.

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