Chapter II

My First in torrents bleak and black
Was rustling from the sky,
When with my Second at his back
Young Cupid wandered by;
“Now take me in; the moon hath past;
I pray ye, take me in!
The lightnings flash, the hail falls fast,
All Hades rides the thunder-blast;
I’m dripping to the skin!”

“I know thee well, thy songs and sighs;
A wicked god thou art,
And yet most welcome to the eyes,
Most witching to the heart!”
The wanderer prayed another prayer,
And shook his drooping wing;
The Lover bade him enter there,
And wrung my First from out his hair,
And dried my Second’s string.
And therefore--(so the urchin swore,
By Styx, the fearful river,
And by the shafts his quiver bore,
And by his shining quiver)--
That Lover aye shall see my Whole
In life’s tempestuous Heaven;
And when the lightnings cease to roll,
Shall fix thereon his dreaming soul
In the deep calm of even.