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Her charms can cure what souls she please,
Rob other hearts of healthful ease,
Turn rivers backward to their source,
And make the stars forget their course,
And call up ghosts from night:
The ground shall bellow 'neath your feet:
The mountain-ash shall quit its seat,
And travel down the height;
By heaven I swear, and your dear life,
Unwillingly these arms I wield,
And take, to meet the coming strife,
Enchantment's sword and shield.
You in the inner court prepare
A lofty pile 'neath open air:
There duly be the armour placed
Left by the traitor in his haste,
The doffed apparel of our foe,
The bridal bed that wrought my woe:
Whate'er was his is doomed to fire:
So magic bids, and I desire.'
She paused: a paleness as of death
Her ghastly features dyes:
Yet Anna dreams not that beneath
These rites a funeral lies:
The frenzy-pitch of love and pride
She knows not—dreams not worse may tide
Than in the hour Sychæus died:
So on her bidding hies.

And now within, beneath the sky,
The pile was rising, heaped on high
With oak and pinewood tree:
The queen enwreathes it round, and weaves
Long chaplets of funereal leaves:
There lays, devoted to the fire,
The sword forgot, the doffed attire,