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The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When fourteen suns had faintly journey’d o’er his dark abode;
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron;
Crown’d with a helmet & dark hair the nameleſs female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need:
Invulnerable tho’ naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
But dumb till that dread day when Orc aſsay’d his fierce embrace.
Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr’d;
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars:
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
The raging fathomleſs abyſs, anon a serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food
I howl my joy; and my red eyes seek to behold thy Face
In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.