Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/191

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Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
 * And let his spirit, like a demon mole,

Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
 * To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;

Pitying each form that hungry Death had marr'd,
 * And filling it once more with human soul?

Ah! this is holiday to what was felt When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

She gazed into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
 * One glance did fully all its secrets tell;

Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
 * Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;

Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
 * Like to a native lily of the dell:

Then with her knife, all sudden she began To dig more fervently than misers can.

Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
 * Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies;

She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
 * And put it in her bosom, where it dries

And freezes utterly unto the bone
 * Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:

Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care, But to throw back at times her veiling hair.

That old nurse stood beside her wondering,
 * Until her heart felt pity to the core