Page:Poems and lyrics of the joy of earth.djvu/63

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POEMS AND LYRICS.
47

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 gray-mailed,
As you see the gray river-mist
Hold shapes on the yonder bank.
A moment her body waned,
The light of her sprang and sank: