In dizzy reel and dazzling ring
The wingéd herdsman flitted.
She has reached at last Zeus' own demesne
That is to all Nature boon,
Green with the glow of the melting snow
And scorched by the Typhoon.
She has come to the tide that is deep and wide,
Untouched by the hand of disease;
Yea, to Nile's water King Inachus' daughter,
Hera's crazed Thyiad, flees.
Paled then all dwellers in that lea
With quaking fear a-cold:
Such hybrid shape they ne'er did see:
Half woman and half cow was she,
A monster to behold.
A freakish, eerie, elfin form,
Whose kind 'twere hard to tell;
If human, out of human shape
Tortured by some dread spell.
Ah, then to charm away her grief,
Who at long last relented,
And rested the far-wandered feet
Of Io, the gnat-tormented?
Even Zeus, Lord Paramount, whose reign
Expects no earthly tyrant's bloody doom;
He eased her of her pain
With sweet constraint from, all enforcement free
And breathings of his love divinely mild,
Tears as of one half-reconciled
