Their unknown curse and all the strength
Of the wild thirsts and lusts they know,
The sharp joys sating them at length,
The new and greater lusts that grow?
But who of mortals shall rehearse
How fair and dreadfully they stand,
Each marked with an eternal curse,
Alien from every kin and land?
—Along the bright and blasted heights
Loudly their cloven footsteps ring!
Full on their fronts the lightning smites,
And falls like some dazed baffled thing.
Now through the mountain clouds they break.
With many a crest high-antlered, reared
Athwart the storm: now they outshake
Fierce locks or manes, glossy and weird,
That sweep with sharp perpetual sound
The arid heights where the snows drift,
And drag the slain pines to the ground,
And all into the whirlwind lift
Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/63
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