snare,

O'er her fair brow she braids her perfumed hair;

The glittering sandals bind her dancing feet,

As their gay silver bells responding sweet

To her light step: in harmony she floats;

While he, enraptured, gazes till he doats.

"What ho, ye serfs, my bondsmen there, what ho!

Crown ye the board, and let the red wine flow;

Fill to the goblet's brim!" he joyous cries;

"This Hebrew damsel lifts me to the skies!

Here in my tent I will that she abide, And with her beauty grace a conqueror's side,"

And wily Judith hears, to glad employ, And still renew, the spell that makes

his joy:

But when his ravish'd senses own the power

Of the full revel and entrancing hour, Sleep doth enchain him with oblivious thrall,

And on his couch she views him powerless fall.

Pass'd hath the midnight watch, the music ceased;

The weary eye turns from the remnant feast,

The tapers faintly gleam: on the still air No echo falls, and she alone is there; On Israel's sleeping foe awhile to gaze,

Amid the hills, and with a grim-set smile Waited, aloof, until the place should fall. All day the housetops lay in sweltering heat;

All night the watch fires flared upon the towers;

And day and night with Israelitish spears

The bastions bristled.

In a tall square Tower, Full-fronting on the vile Assyrian camp, Sat Judith, pallid as the cloudy moon That hung half-faded in the dreary sky; And ever and anon she turned her eyes To where, between two vapor-haunted hills,

The dreadful army like a caldron seethed.

She heard, far off, the camels' gurgling groan,

The clank of arms, the stir and buzz of camps;

Beheld the camp-fires, flaming fiends of night

That leapt, and with red hands clutched at the dark;

And now and then, as some mailed warrior stalked

Athwart the fires, she saw his armor gleam.

Beneath her stretched the temples and the tombs,

The city sickening of its own thick breath,

And over all the sleepless Pleiades.

A star-like face, with floating clouds of hair

Merari's daughter, dead Manasses' wife, Who (since the barley-harvest when he died),

By holy charities, and prayers, and fasts, Walked with the angels in her widow's weeds,

And kept her pure in honor of the dead. But dearer to her bosom than the dead Was Israèl, its Prophets and its God: And that dread midnight, in the Tower alone,

Believing he would hear her from afar, She lifted up the voices of her soul Above the wrangling voices of the world:

As when a harp-string trembles at a touch,

And music runs through all its quivering length,

And does not die, but seems to float away,

A silvery mist uprising from the string: So Judith's prayer rose tremulous in the night,

And floated upward unto other spheres; And Judith loosed her hair about her brows,

And bent her head, and wept for Israel.

Now from the dewy lowlands floated

up

Loose folds of mist that caught at every crag

And melted in the sunlight; then the Morn

Stood full and perfect on the jasper hills.

And Judith rose, and down the spiral stairs

Descended to the garden of the Tower, Where, at the gate, lounged Achior, lately fled

From Holofernes as she past she spoke : "The Lord be with thee, Achior, all thy days."

And Achior saw the Spirit of the Lord Had been with her, and, in a single night,

Worked such a miracle of form and face

As left her lovelier than all womankind Who was before the fairest in Judæa. But she, unconscious of God's miracle, Moved swiftly on among a frozen group Of statues that with empty, slim-necked

urns

Taunted the thirsty Senechal, until She came to where, beneath the spreading palms,

In their blue bourns, except some stealthy guard,

A shadow among shadows, Judith rose, Calling her servant, and the sentinel Drew back, and let her pass beyond the lines

Into the valley. And her heart was full,

Seeing the watch-fires burning on the towers

Of her own city: and she knelt and prayed

For it and them that dwelt within its walls,

And was refreshed-such balm there lies in prayer

For those who know God listens. Straightway then

The two returned, and all the camp was still.

Half-seen behind the forehead of a crag

The evening-star grew sharp against the dusk,

As Judith lingered by the curtained door

Of her pavilion, waiting for Bagoas: Erewhile he came, and led her to the

tent

Of Holofernes; and she entered in, And knelt before him in the cresset's glare

Demurely, like a slave-girl at the feet Of her new master, while the modest blood

Makes protest to the eyelids; and he leaned

Graciously over her, and bade her rise And sit beside him on the leopardskins.

But Judith would not, yet with gentlest grace

Would not; and partly to conceal her blush,

Partly to quell the riot in her breast, She turned, and wrapt her in her fleecy

scarf,

And stood aloof, nor looked as one that breathed,

But rather like some jewelled deity Ta'en by a conqueror from its sacred

niche,