Ah me! but this is never the fair girl,
    With brow of light, as lovely as a pearl,
    That was as beautiful as is the form
    Of sea-bird at the breaking of a storm. 
    The eye is open, with convulsive strain—­
    A most unfleshly orb! the stars that wane
    Have nothing of its hue; for it is cast
    With sickly blood, and terribly aghast! 
    And sunken in its socket, like the light
    Of a red taper in the lonely night! 
    And there is not a braid of her bright hair
    But lieth floating in the moonlight air,
    Like the long moss, beside a silver spring,
    In elfin tresses, sadly murmuring. 
    The worm hath ’gan to crawl upon her brow—­
    The living worm! and with a ripple now,
    Like that upon the sea, are heard below,
    The slimy swarms all ravening as they go,
    Amid the stagnate vitals, with a rush;
    And one might hear them echoing the hush
    Of Julio, as he watches by the side
    Of the dead ladye, his betrothed bride!

    And, ever and anon, a yellow group
    Was creeping on her bosom, like a troop
    Of stars, far up amid the galaxy,
    Pale, pale, as snowy showers; and two or three
    Were mocking the cold finger, round and round,
    With likeness of a ring; and, as they wound
    About its bony girth, they had the hue
    Of pearly jewels glistering in dew. 
    That deathly stare! it is an awful thing
    To gaze upon; and sickly thoughts will spring
    Before it to the heart:  it telleth how
    There must be waste where there is beauty now. 
    The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow
    Of that once heaving bosom!—­even so,—­
    The cold pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade
    Amid the leprous hues; and o’er it played
    The straggling moonlight, and the merry breeze,
    Like two fair elves, that, by the murmuring seas,
    Woo’d smilingly together; but there fell
    No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible
    Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud
    That waneth paler even than a shroud,
    All gorgeous and all glorious before;
    For waste, like to the wanton night, was o’er
    Her virgin features, stealing them away—­
    Ah me! ah me! and this is Agathe?

    “Enough! enough!  Oh God! but I have pray’d
    To thee, in early daylight and in shade,
    And the mad curse is on me still—­and still! 
    I cannot alter the Eternal will—­
    But—­but—­I hate thee, Agathe!  I hate
    What lunacy hath bade me consecrate: 
    I am not mad!—­not now!—­I do not feel
    That slumberous and blessed opiate steal
    Up to my brain—­Oh! that it only would,
    To people this eternal solitude
    With fancies, and fair dreams, and summer mirth,
    Which is not now—­And yet, my mother earth,
    I would not love to lie above