Tale of Archais

THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 51 King of my dainty slumbers, and the days That troop like maidens crowned with ivy leaves ; Mine, through the azure and candescent haze Of far cool mountain caves ; mine o’er the eaves Of windswept ridges of pure snow ; still mine While space is fixed, a void and varying steep, Between our kisses, and another stream Than this old reedy pool, whose waters steam Chill exhalations like a corpse asleep, Meanders from Eternity along, While days fierce-fanged hunt down my love and thine, And urge us to the thickets that forget, And the chill mountains of unlovely song, And the false quags where jealousy lives yet, Or the ill rivers at whose restless shrine Men offer incense to new gods, and wrong The deity they loved, the dear divine Body and breath of Love’s own avatar. They hunt our love from sea to sea, they set Cold fetters on our limbs that would beget