SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
XXXIV
And she had died in drowsy ignorance, ' 265
But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
Which saves a sick man from the feathered pall
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall -270
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
Sense of gnawing fire at heart and brain.
XXXV
It was a vision. In the drowsy gloom,
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb 275
Had marred his glossy hair which once could shoot
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears. 280
XXXVI
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake:
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, 285
As in a palsied Druid?s harp unstrung;
And through it moaned a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.
XXXVII
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
141