Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/307

Beading "De Virginitate,"
 From the first line to the last?
How I said at ending, solemn,
 As I turned and looked at you,
That St. Simeon on the column
 Had had somewhat less to do?

For we sometimes gently wrangled;
 Very gently, be it said,—
For our thoughts were disentangled
 By no breaking of the thread!
And, I charged you with extortions
 On the nobler fames of old—
Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons
 Stained the purple they would fold.

For the rest!—a mystic moaning,
 Kept Cassandra at the gate!
With wild eyes the vision shone in—
 And wide nostrils scenting fate!
And Prometheus, bound in passion
 By brute Force to the blind stone,
Showed us looks of invocation
 Turned to ocean and the sun.

And Medea we saw, burning
 At her nature's planted stake!
And proud Œdipus, fate-scorning,
 While the cloud came on to brake—
While the cloud came on slow—slower,
 Till he stood discrowned, resigned!—
But the reader's voice dropped lower,
 When the poet called him blind!

Ah, my gossip! you were older,
 And more learned, and a man!—
Yet that shadow,—the enfolder
 Of your quiet eyelids,—ran