Until a breeze from sea Sets in, of balm and spice And streams amid the stars, half-hid, Thin mists as white as ice.
And then her eyes grow large With hate or one last hope, And again she bends her gaze where blends The sea with heaven's slope.
But naught the night reveals, The night that seems to weep And shudder down two stars, that drown Themselves within the deep.
Then to herself she says, Softly, "Ah God! to know No death or shame is his, or blame, Who brought on me this woe!
"What though I know that Hell At last will have its own; It will not heal my soul, I feel, Though there he wail and moan.
"Could I his carrion see, On yonder crag's wild crest, Hung up to rot, a traitor's lot, My soul might find some rest!"...
And this is she God made Of sunlight and of flowers For love and kisses and fond caresses-- Yolanda of the Towers.
[Illustration: She raised her oblong lute and smote some chords. Page 230
Queen of the Courts of Love, she sleeps; one arm Pillowing her raven hair, as Dawn might Night, Or Day kiss Dusk; or Darkness, starry warm, Be gathered of her sister, rosy Light.
Pale from the purple of the damask cloth One hand hangs, as a lily-bloom might, lone Above a bed of poppies; or a moth Might softly hover by a rose full-blown.
Heraldic, rich, the costly coverings Sweep, fall'n in folds, pushed partly from her breast; As through storm-broken clouds the full moon springs, From these one orb of her pure bosom pressed.
She sleeps: and where the moteless moonbeams sink Through blazoned panes--an immaterial snow-- In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink With tawny jaws their wasted, winey glow.
Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams are hers, Untouched of feverish sorrow or of care, Soft as the wind whose fragrant breathing stirs The moonbeam-tangled tresses of her hair.
When down the Hartz the echoes swarm, He rides beneath the mountain storm With mad "halloo!" and wild alarm Of hound and horn and thunder: With his hunter, black as night, Ban-dogs, eyed with lambent light; And a stag, a spectral white, Rushes on before, in flight Glimmering through the boughs and under.
Long-howling, crouched in bracken black, The werewolf shuns his ruinous track, On every side the forests crack, And mountain torrents tumble: And the spirits of the air Whistling whirl with scattered hair, Teeth that flash and eyes that glare, Round him as he gallops there, In the rain and tempest's rumble.