Tale of Archais

THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 49 So Cypris comforts here with tender words That pierce her bosom, like dividing swords, With hopes and loves re-quickened, and her breath Grew calm as worship’s, though as dark as death Her soul had been for weary days no few ; Now, lightened by the spirit thrust anew As into a dead body breath of life, She gave sweet thanks with gentle lips that ope, Like buds of roses on the sunny slope Of lily gardens falling toward a stream That flashes back the intolerable beam Of sunlight with light heart. They fled away At Cypris’ word, beyond the bounds of day Into the awful caverns of the night, Eerie with ghosts imagined, and the might Of strange spells cast upon them by the dead. So, ere the dying autumn-tide was fled, There, in a lonely cleft of riven rock, Whose iron fastnesses disdain and mock Fury and fire with impassivity, Archais rested, there alone must she Wait the event of Aphrodite’s wiles.