And she unwound the woven imagery Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt into a ditch. LXXI. And there the body lay, age after age, Mute, breathing, beating, warm and undecaying, Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing, And living in its dreams beyond the rage Of death or life; while they were still arraying In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind And fleeting generations of mankind. LXXII. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain Of those who were less beautiful, and make All harsh and crooked purposes more vain The miser in such dreams would rise and shake Into a beggar's lap ;- the lying scribe Would his own lies betray without a bribe. LXXIII. The priests would write an explanation full, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick LXXIV. The king would dress an ape up in his crown Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet LXXV. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Round the red anvils you might see them stand Beating their swords to ploughshares ;- in a band LXXVI. And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done Only in fancy till the tenth moon shone ; LXXVII. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind! She did unite again with visions clear LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities A tale more fit for the weird winter nights, THE WANING MOON. AND like a dying lady, lean and pale, TO THE MOON. ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Among the stars that have a different birth, - That finds no object worth its constancy? LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. I. THE fountains mingle with the river, Nothing in the world is single; II. See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the moonbeams kiss the sea: |