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For some sweet saint, some muse on whom Beauty has shed all but her bloom, As if it would have nought declare The strife and stain of clay were there. Braided Madonna-like, the wave Of the black hair a lustre gave To the clear forehead, whose pure snow Was even as an angel's brow: While there was in her gentler eye The touch of human sympathy,— That mournful tenderness which still In grief and joy, in good and ill, Lingers with woman through life's void, Sadden'd, subdued, but not destroy'd.    And gazed the countess on the lake, Loving it for its beauty's sake;