Thus in her hour of wrath, o’er Adam’s head

Lilith, then first reveal’d, a name of dread,

thus in her hour of sorrow: and the rage,

that drove the giant-hunters in that age

since whelm’d beneath the weltering cataclysm,

was the mad flight from her instant abysm

and iron sadness and unsatisfied

despair of kings that by Euphrates’ side

rein the wing’d steer or grasp the stony mane

of lions dared, if so they might obtain

surcease of lingering unnamed distress.

And if she kept the word forgetfulness

absorb’d, sole ear of sunken sleep, it is

to them that wander thro’ Persepolis,

Ekbatan, or where else o’er arrow’d bricks

her snakes make the dry noise of trodden sticks,

known and well-known how that revolt was dash’d

and cruel keeps with lustral silence wash’d.

A name of dread reveal’d: and tho’ forgot

in strenuous times to whom the lyre was not,

yet, when her hour awoke, the peoples heard

her coming and the winds no more deferr’d

that sweep along the expected day of wrath,

and rear’d the soaring aisles along her path

to house the massive gloom where she might dwell,

conjectured, hovering, impenetrable,

while o’er the mortal terror crouch’d beneath

the shuddering organ pour’d black wave of death;

when man withheld his hand from life, in fear

to find her, temptress, in the flesh most dear

or on the lowliest ways of simple peace —

vain-weening he that thus their feud might cease:

ay, and the cynic days that thought them blest

to know this earth a plunder-ground confest

and calm within them of the glutted beast

knew her, the emptiness that, when the feast

hath quench’d its lamps, makes, in the invaded hall,

stray’d steps, reverberated from the wall,

sound on the ear like some portentous stride,

companion’s fixt, to mock our tread, beside,

nor near and show his apprehended guise

familiar, ease to our intended eyes.

Lilith, a name of dread: yet was her pain

and loving to her chosen ones not vain

hinted, who know what weight of gelid tears

afflicts the widow’d uplands of the spheres,

and whence the enrapturing breaths are sent that bring

a perfume of the secular flowering

of the far-bleeding rose of Paradise,

that mortal hearts in censer-fume arise

unto the heart that were an ardent peace,

and whence the sibyl-hints of song, that cease

in pale and thrilling silence, lest they wrong

her beauty, whose love bade live their fleeting throng,

even hers, who is the silence of our thought,

as he that sleeps in hush’d Valvins hath taught.