‘But for thy building - as we speak, I feel

Thro’ all the crannies pierce an icy wind

More bitter than the blasts

Which howled without the tents of thy rude fathers.

36

‘Thou hast forgot to bid thy masons close

The chinks of stone against Calamity.’

The sage inclined his brow,

Shivered, and, parting, round him wrapt his mantle.

40

The King turned, thoughtful, to a favourite chief,

The rudest champion of the polished change

That fixed the wain-borne homes

Of the wild Scythian, and encamped a city;

44

‘Heard’st thou the Sage, brave Seuthes?’ asked the King.

‘Yea, the priest deemed thy treasures insecure,

And fain would see them safe

In his own temple:’ The King smiled on Seuthes.

48

Unto this Scythian monarch’s nuptial bed

But one fair girl, Argiope was born;

For whom noearthly throne

Soared from the level of his fond ambition.

52

To her, indeed, had Aphrodite given

Beauty, that royalty which subjects kings,

Sweet with unconscious charm,

And modest as the youngest of the Graces.

56

Men blest her when she moved before their eyes

Shame-faced, as blushing to be born so fair.

Mild as that child of gods

Violet-crowned Athens hallowing named ‘Pity’1.

60

Now, of a sudden, over that bright face

There fell the shadow of some troubled thought,

As cloud, from purest dews

Updrawn, makes sorrowful a star in heaven;

64