Volume Ii Part 30 (2/2)

Admires thee Nature with much pride; She clasps thee for a gift of morn, Till thou art set against the tide, And then beware her scorn.

IX

Sad issue, should that strife befall Between thy mortal s.h.i.+p and thee!

It writes the melancholy scrawl Of wreckage over sea.

X

This lady of the luting tongue, The flash in darkness, billow's grace, For thee the wors.h.i.+p; for the young In muscle the embrace.

XI

Soar on thy manhood clear from those Whose toothless Winter claws at May, And take her as the vein of rose Athwart an evening grey.

PERIANDER

I

How died Melissa none dares shape in words.

A woman who is wife despotic lords Count f.a.ggot at the question, Shall she live!

Her son, because his brows were black of her, Runs barking for his bread, a fugitive, And Corinth frowns on them that feed the cur.

II

There is no Corinth save the whip and curb Of Corinth, high Periander; the superb In magnanimity, in rule severe.

Up on his marble fortress-tower he sits, The city under him: a white yoked steer, That bears his heart for pulse, his head for wits.

III

Bloom of the generous fires of his fair Spring Still coloured him when men forbore to sting; Admiring meekly where the ordered seeds Of his good sovereignty showed gardens trim; And owning that the hoe he struck at weeds Was author of the flowers raised face to him.

IV

His Corinth, to each mood subservient In homage, made he as an instrument To yield him music with scarce touch of stops.

He breathed, it piped; he moved, it rose to fly: At whiles a bloodhorse racing till it drops; At whiles a crouching dog, on him all eye.

V

His wisdom men acknowledged; only one, The creature, issue of him, Lycophron, That rebel with his mother in his brows, Contested: such an infamous would foul Pirene! Little heed where he might house The prince gave, hearing: so the fox, the owl!

VI

<script>