IN MANU DOMINÆ 
169 
 
She hath divers jewels crusted on 
 
To her rings’ graven obscenities, 
Like elfin eyes, the malison 
 
Of a basilisk cockatrice !   
 
She hath a cold, an ardent gleam 
 
In the staring eyes of her ;   
She weaves a witch-web of dank dream 
 
Before her worshipper ;   
Her hand allures him to its theme :   
 
Sceptre to sepulchre !   
 
So cold, so chaste, so sombre glows 
 
The purpose of her cypress glance !   
A sphinx set up amid the snows, 
 
An Attis frozen in his dance, 
Is this unnatural god that knows 
 
No man’s inheritance. 
 
So with a strange Circean smile 
 
She bends herself and moves 
With a vile, a calculated wile 
 
In the unfamiliar grooves, 
Whose horror hath so great a guile 
 
That her hates pass for loves. 
 
Within the gold bars of her rings 
 
She grips the god as in a vice.