Classic Poem

Stark as a Burne-Jones vision of despair,
Amid the painted glare of sand and sky,
She stands, so naked seeming to the air,
Where heat has drunk the living water dry.

The tender color of the verdant North,
The waterfall and streaming mists I know,
Where, from the winding valleys trooping forth,
Her Valkyr sisters hurry toward the snow.

Queen warrior women, silver mailed and white,
From mountain fastnesses which they command,
Bemoan her through the starry Northern night,
Brunhilda, girdled by the burning sand.