LXXVI.

Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed,
Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies,
And then starts back to find the sleeper dead;
So she looks in on his uncover’d eyes,
And seeing all within so drear and dark,
Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark.

LXXVII.

Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess,
Under the swoon of holy divination: 
And what had all surpass’d her simple guess,
She now resolves in this dark revelation;
Death’s very mystery,—­oblivious death;—­
Long sleep,—­deep night, and an entranced breath.

LXXVIII.

Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain,
Merely obscured, and not extinguish’d, lies;
Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows again,
Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs,
And light comes in and kindles up the gloom,
To light her spirit from its transient tomb.

LXXIX.

Then like the sun, awaken’d at new dawn,
With pale bewilder’d face she peers about,
And spies blurr’d images obscurely drawn,
Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt;
But her true grief grows shapely by degrees,—­
A perish’d creature lying on her knees.

LXXX.

And now she knows how that old Murther preys,
Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain: 
How he roams all abroad and grimly slays,
Like a lean tiger in Love’s own domain;
Parting fond mates,—­and oft in flowery lawns
Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns.

LXXXI.

O too dear knowledge!  O pernicious earning! 
Foul curse engraven upon beauty’s page! 
Ev’n now the sorrow of that deadly learning
Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age,
And on her cheek stamps verdict of death’s truth
By canker blights upon the bud of youth!

LXXXII.

For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf,
So her cheeks’ rose is perish’d by her sighs,
And withers in the sickly breath of grief;
Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes,
Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt
From those young lids, now plentifully wept.

LXXXIII.

Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline
Drops straightway down, refusing to partake
In gross admixture with the baser brine,
But shrinks and hardens into pearls opaque,
Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears;
So one maid’s trophy is another’s tears!

LXXXIV.

“O foul Arch-Shadow, thou old cloud of Night,”
(Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,)
“Thou blank Oblivion—­blotter-out of light,
Life’s ruthless murderer, and dear love’s bale! 
Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete,
Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet?”