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.