XLVI.

There was a desolate village in a wood Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed

The hungry storm; it was a place of blood, A heap of hearthless walls;-the flames were dead

Within those dwellings now, the life had fled From all those corpses now,-but the wide sky Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead By the black rafters, and around did lie Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

XLVII.

Beside the fountain in the market-place
Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare
With horny eyes upon each other's face,
And on the earth and on the vacant air,
And upon me, close to the waters where
I stooped to slake my thirst;-I shrank to
taste,

For the salt bitterness of blood was there; But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste

If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

XLVIII.

No living thing was there beside one woman, Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she

Was withered from a likeness of aught human

Into a fiend, by some strange misery:

Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me, And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed

With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee, And cried, "Now Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed

The Plague's blue kisses-soon millions shall pledge the draught!

66

XLIX.

My name is Pestilence-this bosom dry, Once fed two babes- -a sister and a brotherWhen I came home, one in the blood did lie Of three death-wounds-the flames had ate the other!

Since then I have no longer been a mother,
But I am Pestilence;—hither and thither
I flit about, that I may slay and smother:-
All lips which I have kissed must surely
wither,

But Death's-if thou art he, we'll go to work together!

L.

"What seek'st thou here? the moonlight comes in flashes,

The dew is rising dankly from the dell"Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes

In my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell First what thou seek'st.' 'I seek for food."

"'Tis well, Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour, Waits for us at the feast-cruel and fell Is Famine, but he drives not from his door Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!"

LI.

As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength

Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth She led, and over many a corpse :—at length We came to a lone hut, where on the earth Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth,

Gathering from all those homes now desolate, Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth

Among the dead-round which she set in state

A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

LII.

She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: "Eat!

Share the great feast-to-morrow we must die!"

And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,

Towards her bloodless guests;-that sight to meet,

Mine eyes and my heart ached; and but that she

Who loved me did with absent looks defeat Despair, I might have raved in sympathy; But now I took the food that woman offered me;

LIII.

And vainly having with her madness striven
If I might win her to return with me,
Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven
The lightning now grew pallid-rapidly,
As by the shore of the tempestuous sea
The dark steed bore me, and the mountain
grey

Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see Cythna among the rocks, where she alway Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

LIV.

And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,
Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast
My arms around her, lest her steps should fail
As to our home we went, and thus embraced,
Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste
Than e'er the prosperous know; the steed
behind

Trod peacefully along the mountain waste, We reached our home ere morning could unbind

Night's latest veil, and on our bridal couch reclined.

LV.

Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,

And sweetest kisses passed, we two did share Our peaceful meal:-as an autumnal blossom Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny

air,

After cold showers, like rainbows woven
there,

Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit
Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere
Of health and hope; and sorrow languished
near it,

And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.

CANTO SEVENTH.

I.

So we sate joyous as the morning ray Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm

Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play

Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,
And we sate linked in the inwoven charm
Of converse and caresses sweet and deep,
Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm
Time, though he wield the darts of death
and sleep,

And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

II.

I told her of my sufferings and my madness, And how, awakened from that dreamy mood By Liberty's uprise, the strength of gladness Came to my spirit in my solitude;

And all that now I was, while tears pursued Each other down her fair and listening cheek Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood

From sunbright dales; and when I ceased

to speak,

Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

III.

She told me a strange tale of strange en

durance,