Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/67

We hear the new and piercing wail;
  And, through the haunted day's long glare,
In fearful lassitudes turn pale
  With thought of all the curse we bear.

But, for long seasons of the moon,
  When the whole giant earth, stretched low,
Seems straightening in a silent swoon
  Beneath the close grip of the snow,

We well nigh cheat the hideous spells
  That force our souls resistless back,
With languorous torments worse than hell's
  To the frail body's fleshly rack:

And with our brotherhood the storms,
  Whose mighty revelry unchains
The avalanches, and deforms
  The ancient mountains and the plains,—

We hold high orgies of the things,
  Strange and accursèd of all flesh,
Whereto the quick sense ever brings
  The sharp forbidden thrill afresh.