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