Detail from Luna by Edward Burne-Jones and Morris & Co.
English, 1878
stained glass
private collection x
Source: Flickr / eoskins
Source: Flickr / eoskins
Yet tottering as I am, and weak,
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death
An entrance to that happy place;
To seek the unforgotten face
Once seen, once kiss’d, once reft from me
Anigh the murmuring of the sea.
William Morris, "The Nymph's Song to Hylas"
Source: bartleby.com
'Look down,' he said,
'And take good heed thou turnest not thine head.'
Then gazing down with shuddering dread and awe,
Over her imaged shoulder, soon she saw
The head rise up, so beautiful and dread,
That, white and ghastly, yet seemed scarcely dead
Beside the image of her own fair face,
As, daring not to move from off the place,
But trembling sore, she cried: 'Enough, O love!
What man shall doubt thou art the son of Jove;
I think thou wilt not die.'
William Morris, "The Doom of King Acrisius" from The Earthly Paradise
Source: victorianweb.org
But godlike, fearless, burning with desire,
The adamant jaws and lidless eyes of fire
Did Perseus mock, and lightly leapt aside
As forward did the torture-chamber glide
Of his huge head, and ere the beast could turn,
One moment bright did blue-edged Herpe burn,
The next was quenched in the black flow of blood;
Then in confused folds the hero stood,
His bright face shadowed by the jaws of death,
His hair blown backward by the poisonous breath.
William Morris, "The Doom of King Acrisius" from The Earthly Paradise
Source: victorianweb.org
Awhile stood Perseus gazing on the three,
Then sheathed his sword, and toward them warily
He went, and from the last one snatched the eye,
Who, feeling it gone from her, with a cry
Sprung up and said: 'O sisters, he is here
That we were warned so long ago to fear,
And verily he has the eye of me.'
William Morris, "The Doom of King Acrisius" from The Earthly Paradise
Source: victorianweb.org
Now tall and straight her figure did arise,
That erst seemed bent with weight of many a year,
And on her head a helmet shone out clear
For the rent clout that held the grizzled head;
With a fair breastplate was she furnished,
From whence a hauberk to her knees fell down;
And underneath, a perfumed linen gown,
I'erwrought with many-coloured Indian silk,
fell to her sandall'd feet, as white as milk.
Grey-eyed she was, like amber shone her hair,
Aloft she held her right arm round and bare,
Whose hand upheld a spear-shaft nigh the steel.
William Morris, "The Doom of King Acrisius" from The Earthly Paradise
Source: victorianweb.org