Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/38

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26

Sprinkling their powerful drops. From ebon urn,The one unsparing dash'd the bitter waveOf woe; and as he dash'd, his dark-brown brow

    On a rock more highThan Nature’s common surface, she beholdsThe Mansion house of Fate, which thus unfoldsIts sacred mysteries. A trine withinA quadrate placed, both these encompast inA perfect circle was its form; but whatIts matter was, for us to wonder at,Is undiscovered left. A Tower there standsAt every angle, where Time’s fatal handsThe impartial Parcæ dwell; i’ the first she seesClotho the kindest of the Destinies,From immaterial essences to cullThe seeds of life, and of them frame the woolFor Lachesis to spin; about her flieMyriads of souls, that yet want flesh to lieWarm’d with their functions in, whose strength bestowsThat power by which man ripe for misery grows.
    Her next of objects was that glorious towerWhere that swift-fingered Nymph that spares no hourFrom mortals’ service, draws the various threadsOf life in several lengths; to weary bedsOf age extending some, whilst others in

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