Of the Song pouring hydromel
     In thunder, the wide-winged Song. 
     And he named with his boyish pride
     The heroes, the noble throng
     Past Acheron now, foul tide! 
     With his joy of the godlike band
     And the verse divine, he named
     The chiefs pressing hot on the strand,
     Seen of Gods, of Gods aided, and maimed. 
     The fleetfoot and ireful; the King;
     Him, the prompter in stratagem,
     Many-shifted and masterful:  Sing,
     O Muse!  But she cried:  Not of them
     She breathed as if breath had failed,
     And her eyes, while she bade him desist,
     Held the lost-to-light ghosts grey-mailed,
     As you see the grey river-mist
     Hold shapes on the yonder bank. 
     A moment her body waned,
     The light of her sprang and sank: 
     Then she looked at the sun, she regained
     Clear feature, and she breathed deep. 
     She wore the wan smile he had seen,
     As the flow of the river of Sleep,
     On the mouth of the Shadow-Queen. 
     In sunlight she craved to bask,
     Saying:  Life!  And who was she? who? 
     Of what issue?  He dared not ask,
     For that partly he knew.

     VIII

     A noise of the hollow ground
     Turned the eye to the ear in debate: 
     Not the soft overflowing of sound
     Of the pines, ranked, lofty, straight,
     Barely swayed to some whispers remote,
     Some swarming whispers above: 
     Not the pines with the faint airs afloat,
     Hush-hushing the nested dove: 
     It was not the pines, or the rout
     Oft heard from mid-forest in chase,
     But the long muffled roar of a shout
     Subterranean.  Sharp grew her face. 
     She rose, yet not moved by affright;
     ’Twas rather good haste to use
     Her holiday of delight
     In the beams of the God of the Muse. 
     And the steeps of the forest she crossed,
     On its dry red sheddings and cones
     Up the paths by roots green-mossed,
     Spotted amber, and old mossed stones. 
     Then out where the brook-torrent starts
     To her leap, and from bend to curve
     A hurrying elbow darts
     For the instant-glancing swerve,
     Decisive, with violent will
     In the action formed, like hers,
     The maiden’s, ascending; and still
     Ascending, the bud of the furze,
     The broom, and all blue-berried shoots
     Of stubborn and prickly kind,
     The juniper flat on its roots,
     The dwarf rhododaphne, behind
     She left, and the mountain sheep
     Far behind, goat, herbage and flower. 
     The island was hers, and the deep,
     All heaven, a golden hour. 
     Then with wonderful voice, that rang
     Through air as the swan’s nigh death,
     Of the glory of Light she sang,
     She sang of the rapture