III

     Then, on the unanticipated day,
     Earth heaved, and rose a veinous mound
     To roar of the underfloods; and off it sprang,
     Ravishing as red wine in woman’s form,
     A splendid Maenad, she of the delirious laugh,
     Her body twisted flames with the smoke-cap crowned;
     She of the Bacchic foot; the challenger to the fray,
     Bewitchment for the embrace; who sang, who sang
     Intoxication to her swarm,
     Revolved them, hair, voice, feet, in her carmagnole,
     As with a stroke she snapped the Royal staff,
     Dealt the awaited blow on gilt decay
     (O ripeness of the time!  O Retribution sure,
     If but our vital lamp illume us to endure!)
     And, like a glad releasing of her soul,
     Sent the word Liberty up to meet the midway blue,
     Her bridegroom in descent to her; and they joined,
     In the face of men they joined:  attest it true,
     The million witnesses, that she,
     For ages lying beside the mole,
     Was on the unanticipated miracle day
     Upraised to midway heaven and, as to her goal,
     Enfolded, ere the Immaculate knew
     What Lucifer of the Mint had coined
     His bride’s adulterate currency
     Of burning love corrupt of an infuriate hate;
     She worthy, she unworthy; that one day his mate: 
     His mate for that one day of the unwritten deed. 
     Read backward on the hoar-frost’s brilliant crust;
     Beneath it read. 
     Athirst to kiss, athirst to slay, she stood,
     A radiance fringed with grim affright;
     For them that hungered, she was nourishing food,
     For those who sparkled, Night. 
     Read in her heart, and how before the Just
     Her doings, her misdoings, plead.

     IV

     Down on her leap for him the young Angelical broke
     To husband a resurgent France: 
     From whom, with her dethroning stroke,
     Dishonour passed; the dalliance,
     That is occasion’s yea or nay,
     In issues for the soul to pay,
     Discarded; and the cleft ’twixt deed and word,
     The sinuous lie which warbles the sweet bird,
     Wherein we see old Darkness peer,
     Cold Dissolution beck, she had flung hence;
     And hence the talons and the beak of prey;
     Hence all the lures to silken swine
     Thronging the troughs of indolence;
     With every sleek convolvement serpentine;
     The pride in elfin arts to veil an evil leer,
     And bid a goatfoot trip it like a fay. 
     He clasped in this revived, uprisen France,
     A valorous dame, of countenance
     The lightning’s upon cloud:  unlit as yet
     On brows and lips the lurid shine
     Of seas in the night-wind’s whirl; unstirred
     Her pouch of the centuries’ injuries compressed;
     The shriek that tore the world as yet unheard: