Part 4 (2/2)

Her lover saw; he saw, and knew His giant strength would bear her through

And yet he would not start or stir

He clasped her close as death can hold, Or dying old,-- His hold becaive her up! He would Not bear her ard though he could!

That height was heaven; the as hell

He clasped her close,--what else had done The manliest man beneath the sun?

Was it not well? was it not well?

O like walk thy ways of death!

For more than years of bliss you had That one brief time you breathed her breath

Yea, more than years upon a throne That one brief tied to soul, vehement, vast,-- True breast to breast, and all your own

Live ht Like that, and I will blow like chaff The hollow years aside, and laugh A loud triuladly die

Oh, but to wrap my love with flame!

With flame within, with flame without!

Oh, but to die like this, nor doubt-- To die and know her still the sahostly shore Snohite she waits h in air,-- His great strong lith!-- Then turned his knotted shoulders bare As birth-tith, And strode, strode with a lordly stride To where the high and wood-hung edge Looked down, far down upon the e, The fla at his side

XL

He leaned above the ledge Below He saw the black shi+p idly cruise,-- A e below, a mile below

His limbs were knotted as the thews Of Hercules in his death-throe

The flame! the flame! the envious flame!

She wound her arrand and bare, To stay the fierce flame where it came

The black shi+p, like so sea Crept on and on all silently, With silent pyge-like shi+p far, far below; That an to grow,-- To grow and grow randly still

The shi+p so srew to tower over all

A tall Colossus, bronze and gold, As if that flame-lit form were he Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea, And ruled the watery world of old: As if the lost Colossus stood Above that burning sea of wood

And she, that shapely forh, as if to touch the sky, What airy shape, how shapely high,-- A Goddess of the seas of eld!

Her hand upheld, her high right hand, As if she would forget the land; As if to gather stars, and heap The stars like torches there to light Her Hero's path across the deep To soht

It was as if Colossus ca froold, His sea-bride leaping from his hold; The lost Colossus, and his bride In bronze perfection at his side: As if the lost Colossus came Companioned from the past, his bride With torch all faithful at his side: