Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given gether! For I lov'd them in terror, and constantly dreaded That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, The face I might dote on, should live out the lease And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught, Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up When he pledg'd her, and Fate clos'd his eyes in the cup. And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear my ear; For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk; But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore, And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note, That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree, Oh! for innocent death, — and to suddenly win it, I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it; For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, But moan'd, all their brutaliz'd flesh could not smother The horrible truth, - we were kin to each other! They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for relief, All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: The leopard was there, - baby-mild in its feature ; And the tiger, black barr'd, with the gaze of a creature That knew gentle pity; the bristle-back'd boar, His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore ; And the laughing hyena - but laughing no more; And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise Strange death, but with woman's attraction of eyes; The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine; And the elephant stately, with more than its reason, How thoughtful in sadness! but this is no season To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous load. There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, when I came, That hung down their heads with a human-like shame; The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair; And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust, Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust; While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot, As I brought them the image of what they were not. Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking Through vile brutal organs-low tremulous croaking; Cries swallow'd abruptly - deep animal tones Attun'd to strange passion, and full-utter'd groans; Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yearning jaws; That I wept for my heart-ease, but they could not weep, And gazed with red eye-balls, all wistfully dry, At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their distress, In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses blister'd This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my lot, Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was not When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces, That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places, And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were wet, And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet: But I fled though they stretch'd out their hands, all entangled With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they had mangled, |