Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/108

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How every soldier, with firm foot, doth hold His even breast: see, many steeled squares, And rigid ranks of iron—whence who dares One step? Imagine further, line by line, These warrior thousands on the field supine:— So in that crystal place, in silent rows, Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes. The stranger from the mountains, breathless, traced Such thousands of shut eyes in order placed; Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips All ruddy,—for here death no blossom nips. He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw their hair Put sleekly on one side with nicest care; And each one's gentle wrists, with reverence, Put cross-wise to its heart.


 * "Let us commence

(Whisper'd the guide, stuttering with joy) even now." He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough, Began to tear his scoll in pieces small, Uttering the while some mumblings funeral. He tore it into pieces small as snow That drifts unfeather'd when bleak northerns blow; And having done it, took his dark blue cloak And bound it round Endymion: then struck His wand against the empty air times nine. "What more there is to do, young man, is thine: But first a little patience; first undo This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue. Ah, gentle! 'tis as weak as spider's skein; And shouldst thou break it—What, is it done so clean?