Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/140

Whereat comes heathen Zephyrus, out of breath
With running up the hills, and shakes his hair
From off his gleesome forehead, bold and glad
With keeping blythe Dan Phœbus company;—
And throws him on the grass, though half afraid;
First glancing round, lest tempests should be nigh;
And lays close to the ground his ruddy lips,
And shapes their beauty into sound, and calls
On all the petall'd flowers that sit beneath
In hiding-places from the rain and snow,
To loosen the hard soil, and leave their cold
Sad idlesse, and betake them up to him.
They straightway hear his voice———

A thought did come,
And press from out my soul the heathen dream.
Mine eyes were purgëd. Straightway did I bind
Round me the garment of my strength, and heard
Nature's death-shrieking—the hereafter cry,