“O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
  I wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds,
  Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
  Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
  The Abominable, that uninvited came 220
  Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall,
  And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
  And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,
  And tell her to her face how much I hate
  Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 225

  “O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
  Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
  In this green valley, under this green hill,
  Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? 
  Seal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears? 230
  O happy tears, and how unlike to these! 
  O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face? 
  O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight? 
  O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
  There are enough unhappy on this earth, 235
  Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: 
  I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
  And shadow all my soul, that I may die. 
  Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
  Weigh heavy on my eyelids:  let me die. 240

  “O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
  I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
  Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
  Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
  Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, 245
  Like footsteps upon wool.  I dimly see
  My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
  Conjectures of the features of her child
  Ere it is born:  her child!—­a shudder comes
  Across me:  never child be born of me, 250
  Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!

  “O mother, hear me yet before I die. 
  Hear me, O earth.  I will not die alone,
  Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
  Walking the cold and starless road of Death 255
  Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love
  With the Greek woman.  I will rise and go
  Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
  Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says
  A fire dances before her, and a sound 260
  Rings ever in her ears of armed men. 
  What this may be I know not, but I know
  That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,
  All earth and air seem only burning fire.”

THE EPIC

  At Francis Allen’s on the Christmas-eve,—­
  The game of forfeits done—­the girls all kiss’d
  Beneath the sacred bush and past away—­
  The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,
  The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, 5
  Then half-way ebb’d:  and there we held a talk,
  How all the old honour had from Christmas