Gebir by Walter Savage Landor
page 42 of 66 (63%)
page 42 of 66 (63%)
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Begone, nor tarry longer, or ere morn
The cormorant in his solitary haunt Of insulated rock or sounding cove Stands on thy bleached bones and screams for prey. My lips can scatter them a hundred leagues, So shrivelled in one breath as all the sands We tread on could not in as many years. Wretched who die nor raise their sepulchre! Therefore begone." But Dalica unawed (Though in her withered but still firm right-hand Held up with imprecations hoarse and deep Glimmered her brazen sickle, and enclosed Within its figured curve the fading moon) Spake thus aloud. "By yon bright orb of Heaven, In that most sacred moment when her beam Guided first thither by the forked shaft, Strikes through the crevice of Arishtah's tower--" "Sayst thou?" astonished cried the sorceress, "Woman of outer darkness, fiend of death, From what inhuman cave, what dire abyss, Hast thou invisible that spell o'erheard? What potent hand hath touched thy quickened corse, What song dissolved thy cerements, who unclosed Those faded eyes and filled them from the stars? But if with inextinguished light of life Thou breathest, soul and body unamerced, Then whence that invocation? who hath dared Those hallowed words, divulging, to profane?" Dalica cried, "To heaven, not earth, addressed, |
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