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Though they call'd- and perchance but to ask, had I

seen

Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been: But I stay'd not to hear, lest the story should hold Some hell-form of words, some enchantment once told, Might translate me in flesh to a brute; and I dreaded To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded With some pity, and love in that pity perchance

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To a thing not all lovely; for once at a glance

Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under

The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast,

Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?

So I roam'd in that circle of horrors, and Fear Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near Cluster'd trees for their gloom not to shelter from

heat

But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet;
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place,
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face,
In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none

Could see, like invisible flames in the sun;)

But grew to one monster that seized on the light,
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night;
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the South;
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest,

Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West,
Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin,

Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight
Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light;
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close,
When they rush'd on that shadowy Python of foes,
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws,
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws,
And whirls of long tails: — I have seen the quick flutter
Of fragments dissever'd, — and necks stretch'd to utter
Long screamings of pain, the swift motion of blows,

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And wrestling of arms to the flight at the close, When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings,. And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their wings.

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Thus they fled not forgotten but often to grow

Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro

In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean

I knew not, nor whether the love I had won

Was of heaven or hell - till one day in the sun,

In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky,
Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye.
And when in my musings I gaz'd on the stream,
In motionless trances of thought, there would seem
A face like that face, looking upward through mine;
With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned shine
Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue
Serene : there I stood for long hours but to view

-

Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things That once had been wonders the fishes with wings,

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And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up

From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup,

And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam,

Slow winding along like a tide in the stream.
Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought

Held me dear in the pearl of her eye and I brought

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My wish to that fancy; and often I dash'd

My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd

The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink,
Chill'd by watery fears, how that Beauty might sink
With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear,
Like a spider-caught bee, and in aid of that fear
Came the tardy remembrance - Oh falsest of men!
Why was not that beauty remember'd till then?
My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run
Into mine like a drop- that our fate might be one,

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That now, even now,-may-be, - clasp'd in a dream, That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream,

And gaz'd with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind

of my mind,

On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt

To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear, Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one but oh to fly from her, and shun

That loved me,

Her love like a pest-though her love was as true

To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue;

For why should I love her with love that would bring All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing?

Because of her rival, even Her whose witch-face

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I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place
To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank,
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank;
Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail
To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale
Of Scylla, and Picus, imprison'd to speak

His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak.

Then they ceased -- I had heard as the voice of my star That told me the truth of my fortunes thus far

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I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush

Of deep meditation,

when lo! a light crush

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