Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/301

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Thy hour-glass, if these gummed leaves be burnt Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps." I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once, So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed. Prodigious seem'd the toil; the leaves were yet Burning, when suddenly a palsied chill Struck from the paved level up my limbs, And was ascending quick to put cold grasp Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat. I shriek'd, and the sharp anguish of my shriek Stung my own ears; I strove hard to escape The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step. Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold Grew stifling, suffocating at the heart; And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not. One minute before death my iced foot touch'd The lowest stair; and, as it touch'd, life seem'd To pour in at the toes; I mounted up As once fair angels on a ladder flew From the green turf to heaven. "Holy Power." Cried I, approaching near the horned shrine, "What am I that should so be saved from death? What am I that another death come not To choke my utterance, sacrilegious, here?" Then said the veiled shadow: "Thou hast felt What 'tis to die and live again before Thy fated hour; that thou hadst power to do so Is thine own safety; thou hast dated on Thy doom." "High Prophetess," said I, "purge off, Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film." "None can usurp this height," returned that shade,