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