Jephthah and Other Mysteries

LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC. The toiling woman and assure our path Through this foul hell. And now the very air Is thick with cold wet horrors. With my sword Trenchant, that tore their scaly essences— Like Lucian’s sailor writhing in the clutch Of those witch-vines—I slashed about like light, And noises horrible of death devoured The hateful suction of their clinging arms And wash of slipping bellies. Presently Sense failed, and Nothing! | Bye-and-bye we woke In a most beautiful canoe of pearl Lucent on lucent water, in a sun That was the heart of spring. But the green land Seemed distant, with a sense of aery height ; As if it were below us far, that seemed Around. And as we gazed the water grew Ethereal, thin, most delicately hued, Misty, as if its substance were dissolved In some more subtle element. We heard “O passers over water, do ye dare To tread the deadlier kingdoms of the air?” . Whereat I cried: Arise! And then the pearl Budded with nautilus-wings, and upward now Soared. And our souls began to know the death That was about to take us. All our veins Boiled with tumultuous and bursting blood, 95 Our flesh broke bounds, and all our bones grew fierce, As if some poison ate us up. And lo! The air is peopled with a devil-tribe