Sir Palamedes

Until the shapes of death advance And gather round her, shrieking loud And wailing o’er the wide expanse Of sand, the gibbering, mewing crowd. Like cats, and apes, they gather close, Till, like the horror of a cloud Wrapping the flaming sun with rose, They hide her from the hero’s sight. Then doth he muse thereat morose, When in one wild cascade of light The pageant breaks, and thunder roars: Down flaps the loathly wing of night. He sees the lonely Breton shores Lapped in the levin: then his eyes See how she shrieking soars and soars Into the starless, stormy skies. Well! well! this lesson will he learn, How music’s mellowing artifice May bid the breast of nature burn And call the gods from star and shrine. So now his sounding courses turn To find an instrument divine Whereon he may pursue his quest. How glitter green his gleeful eyne 53