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 I listened, and I heard its tongue, The tongue of mortal fancy, Of Earth's affections ever young, And human innocency.

I heard; my heart began to melt, And farther inquest urging My eyes—that dared not see it—felt The bosom of the Virgin.

Ah, was it then a human breast? Within it did the treasures Of womanhood lie unconfest, The sorrows and the pleasures?

And all the Woman kind and warm My heart was busy tracing, When gleams of glory crossed the form, With lovelier face defacing.

I saw—what was it that I saw?— Some Excellence supernal That, scorning the material law, Shone by the sempiternal?