Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/116

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She plucketh many flowers,

Their beauty on her bosom's coldness killing;

She teacheth every melancholy sound

To winds and waters round;

She droppeth tears with seed, where man is tilling

The rugged soil in his exhausted hours;

She smileth—ah me! in her smile doth go

A mood of deeper woe!

Hope tripped on out of sight

Crowned with an Eden wreath she saw not fade,

And went a-nodding through the wilderness,

With brow that shone no less

Than sea-bird wings, by storm more frequent made,—

Searching the treeless rock for fruits of light;

Her fair quick feet being armed from stones and cold,

By slippers all of gold.

Memory did Hope much wrong,

And, while she dreamed, her slippers stole away;

But still she wended on with mirth unheeding,

The while her feet were bleeding;

Till Memory met her on a certain day,

And with most evil eyes did search her long

And cruelly, whereat she sank to ground

In a stark deadly swound.