Not moving now as she was wont to greet him;

Joy in her eye and in her eager pace;

With a calm smile of melancholy pride

She met him now, and, turning half aside,

Her warning hand repell’d the dear embrace.

Strange things, Ereenia, have befallen us here,

The Virgin said; the Almighty Man hath read

The lines which, traced by Nature on my brain,

There to the gifted eye

Make all my fortunes plain,

Mapping the mazes of futurity.

He sued for peace, for it is written there

That I with him the Amreeta cup must share;

Wherefore he bade me come, and by his side

Sit on the Swerga-throne, his equal bride.

I need not tell thee what reply was given;

My heart, the sure interpreter of Heaven,

His impious words belied.

Thou seest his poor revenge! So having said,

One look she glanced upon her leprous stain

Indignantly, and shook

Her head in calm disdain.

3.

O Maid of soul divine!

O more than ever dear,

And more than ever mine,

Replied the Glendoveer;

He hath not read, be sure, the mystic ways

Of Fate; almighty as he is, that maze

Hath mock’d his fallible sight.

Said he the Amreeta-cup? So far aright

The Evil One may see; for Fate displays

Her hidden things in part, and part conceals,

Baffling the wicked eye

Alike with what she hides, and what reveals,

When with unholy purpose it would pry

Into the secrets of futurity.

So may it be permitted him to see

Dimly the inscrutable decree;

For to the world below,

Where Yamen guards the Amreeta, we must go;

Thus Seeva hath exprest his will, even he

The Holiest hath ordain’d it; there, he saith,

All wrongs shall be redrest

By Yamen, by the righteous Power of Death.

4.

Forthwith the Father and the fated Maid,

And that heroic Spirit, who for them

Such flight had late essay’d,

The will of Heaven obey’d.

They went their way along the road

That leads to Yamen’s dread abode.

5.

Many a day hath past away

Since they began their arduous way,

Their way of toil and pain;

And now their weary feet attain

The Earth’s remotest bound

Where outer Ocean girds it round.

But not like other Oceans this,

Rather it seem’d a drear abyss,

Upon whose brink they stood.

Oh, scene of fear! the travellers hear

The raging of the flood;

They hear how fearfully it roars,

But clouds of darker shade than night

For ever hovering round those shores,

Hide all things from their sight.

The Sun upon that darkness pours

His unavailing light;

Nor ever Moon nor Stars display,

Through the thick shade, one guiding ray

To shew the perils of the way.

6.

There, in a creek, a vessel lay.

Just on the confines of the day,

It rode at anchor in its bay,

These venturous pilgrims to convey

Across that outer Sea.

Strange vessel sure it seem’d to be,

And all unfit for such wild sea!

For through its yawning side the wave

Was oozing in; the mast was frail,

And old and torn its only sail.

How shall that crazy vessel brave

The billows, that in wild commotion

For ever roar and rave?

How hope to cross the dreadful Ocean,

O’er which eternal shadows dwell,

Whose secrets none return to tell!

7.

Well might the travellers fear to enter!