Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/195

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And why it flourish'd, as by magic touch;
 * Greatly they wonder'd what the thing might mean:

They could not surely give belief, that such
 * A very nothing would have power to wean

Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay, And even remembrance of her love's delay.

Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift
 * This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain;

For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift,
 * And seldom felt she any hunger-pain:

And when she left, she hurried back, as swift
 * As bird on wing to breast its eggs again:

And, patient as a hen-bird, sat her there Beside her Basil, weeping through her hair Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot,
 * And to examine it in secret place:

The thing was vile with green and livid spot.
 * And yet they knew it was Lorenzo's face:

The guerdon of their murder they had got.
 * And so left Florence in a moment's space,

Never to turn again.—Away they went. With blood upon their heads, to banishment. O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away!
 * O Music, Music, breathe despondingly!

O Echo, Echo, on some other day,
 * From isles Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh!