Household Gods

‘Over the hill! The hunter is hot—this is the kill! The heart of the home Is a fury of foam; ‘The storm is awake, and the billows comb. But though I be ‘Their frenzy of glee, I am also the passionless soul of the sea! Mine eyes glint fire, And my cruel lips curl; ‘Mine the desire Of the god and the girl; But fierier and fteeter, And subtler and sweeter Than the race of the rhythm, the march of the metre, Is the shrilling, sbrilling Of the knife in the killing That ends, when it must, (O the throb and the thrust!) In death, in the dust, The silence, the stillness, of satiate lust, The solemn pause ‘When the veil withdraws And man looks on his god, on the Causeless Cause. Still, stilt, Under the hill! The hunter is dead—this is the kill! ge