III. Verses for the Four Odes on the Fast of Malfaloth

Four verses.

In the deep,--the deep abysses

Of her slumber—fair Onmanda,

World’s first mother,

Dreamed of beauty Under Starlight,

Dreamed of fragrant flowers blooming.

Dreaming of those blooming flowers,

So she lay beneath the apples,

Golden apples, fairest treasure

Of the palace of the Flower,

Malfaloth the Silver Hunter.

Malfaloth the Silver Hunter

Wandering long through Lower Heaven

Left unguarded all his treasures

Seeking quarry through the cloudbanks.

Fair Onmanda slept at winter.

Fair Onmanda slept in winter

Till a golden apple, falling

Woke her from her winter’s slumber.

Then the spring, awake’d by beauty,

Drove away the clouds of winter.