There in the print of the last of the kisses that still glowed red from the sweet long pressure,

Fierce as famine and swift as lightning over the glittering lyre he smote.

And over the cold white body of love and delight Orpheus arose in the terrible storm of his grief, With quivering up-clutched hands, deadly and white, And his whole soul wavered and shook like a windswept leaf:

As a leaf that beats on a mountain, his spirit in vain Assaulted his doom and beat on the Gates of Death: Then prone with his arms o'er the lyre he sobbed out his pain,

And the tense chords faintly gave voice to the pulse of his breath.

And he heard it and rose, once again, with the lyre in his hand,

And smote out the cry that his white-lipped sorrow

denied:

And the grief's mad ecstasy swept o'er the summer-sweet

land,

And gathered the tears of all Time in the rush of its tide.

There was never a love forsaken or faith forsworn, There was never a cry for the living or moan for the slain,

But was voiced in that great consummation of song; ay, and borne

To storm on the Gates of the land whence none

cometh again.

Transcending the barriers of earth, comprehending them

all,

He followed the soul of his loss with the night in his

eyes;

And the portals lay bare to him there; and he heard the faint call

Of his love o'er the rabble that wails by the river of sighs.

Oh then, through the soul of the Singer, a pity so vast Mixed with his anguish that, smiting anew on his lyre, He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance at last, Comprehending the need of them all in his own great desire.

On through the deserts of hell she came; for over the fierce and frozen meadows

Pleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;

So she arose from her grave in the darkness, and up through the wailing fires and shadows,

On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the horrors of death she came.

Then had she followed him, then had he won her, striking a chord that should echo for ever,

Had he been steadfast only a little, nor paused in the

great transcendent song;

But ere they had won to the glory of day, he came to the brink of the flaming river

And ceased, to look on his love a moment, a little moment, and overlong.

He gazed: he ceased to smite
The golden-chorded lyre:
Delight

Consumed his heart with fire.

Though in that deadly land
His task was but half-done,
His hand

Drooped, and the fight half-won.

Out of his hand the lyre.
Suddenly slipped and fell,
The fire

Acclaimed it into hell.

The night grew dark again:
There came a bitter cry
Of pain,

Oh Love, once more I die!

And lo, the earth-dawn broke,

And like a wraith she fled:
He woke

Alone: his love was dead.

Though the golden lute of Orpheus gathered the splendors of earth and heaven,

All the golden greenwood notes and all the chimes of the changing sea,

Old men over the fires of winter murmur again that he was not given

The steadfast heart divine to rule that infinite freedom of harmony.