Tale of Archais

THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 61 And Charicles’ grey eyes were luminous With love-reflections multitudinous As lilies in the spring. Again was seen As in a mirror, like the ocean green, The admirable birth of Love’s eternal Queen. So Charicles a moment was amazed. A moment ; then, contemptuous, he gazed With curling lip on her, and sourly scorns Her petty miracle : “ The deed adorns Too well a queen whose promises are foam.” And she, indignant, would have hied her home And left him to despair, but pitying His soul struck through with darts : “ A bitter Thing ” (She cried) “ thou sayest, yet perchance my power Is not as great as thine, for while I cower Under the lash of Zeus, stand thou upright, And laugh him to his beard for all his spite.” “ I, even now beneath his doom ? ” “ Even thou ! For learn this law, writ large upon the brow Of white Olympus, writ by him who made Thee, yea and Zeus, of whom is Zeus afraid