Page:Carroll - Phantasmagoria and other poems (1869).djvu/168

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 * She is here at my side, a living child,
 * With the glowing cheek and the tresses wild,

Nor death-pale martyr, nor radiant saint,
 * Yet stainless and bright as they.

For I think, if a grim wild beast
 * Were to come from his charnel-cave,

From his jungle-home in the East—
 * Stealthily creeping with bated breath,
 * Stealthily creeping with eyes of death—

He would all forget his dream of the feast,
 * And crouch at her feet a slave.

She would twine her hand in his mane,
 * She would prattle in silvery tone

Like the tinkle of summer rain—
 * Questioning him with her laughing eyes,
 * Questioning him with a glad surprise,

Till she caught from those fierce eyes again
 * The love that lit her own.