Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/311

 Spake more than Woman's Thought: and all her fact Was moulded to such Features, as declared, That Pity there had oft and strongly work'd, And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien, And like an haughty Huntress of the woods She mov'd: yet sure she was a gentle maid! And in each motion her most innocent soul Beam'd forth so brightly, that who saw would say, Guilt was a thing impossible in her! Nor idly would have said, for she had liv'd In this bad World, as in a place of Tombs And touch'd not the pollutions of the Dead.

'Twas the cold season when the Rustic's eye From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints And clouds slow-varying their huge imagery; When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid Had left her pallet ere one beam of day Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone, Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft, With dim inexplicable sympathies Disquieting the Heart, shapes out Man's course To the predoomed adventure. Now the ascent She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top VOL. II.