The White Women lyrics

Where dwell the lovely, wild white women folk,

Mortal to man?

They never bowed their necks beneath the yoke,

They dwelt alone when the first morning broke

And Time began.

Taller are they than man, and very fair,

Their cheeks are pale,

At sight of them the tiger in his lair,

The falcon hanging in the azure air,

The eagles quail.

The deadly shafts their nervous hands let fly

— Are stronger than our strongest — in their form

Larger, more beauteous, carved amazingly,

And when they fight, the wild white women cry

The war-cry of the storm.

Their words are not as ours. If man might go

— Among the waves of Ocean when they break

And hear them — hear the language of the snow

Falling on torrents — he might also know

The tongue they speak.

Pure are they as the light; they never sinned,

— But when the rays of the eternal fire

Kindle the West, their tresses they unbind

And fling their girdles to the Western wind,

Swept by desire.

Lo, maidens to the maidens then are born,

— Strong children of the maidens and the breeze,

Dreams are not — in the glory of the morn,

Seen through the gates of ivory and horn —

More fair than these.

And none may find their dwelling. In the shade

— Primeval of the forest oaks they hide.

One of our race, lost in an awful glade,

Saw with his human eyes a wild white maid,

And gazing, died.

• Artist:Mary Elizabeth Coleridge