Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/76

70 But one day I stood beside it on a sudden, unexpected,
 * When the sun had crossed the valley and a shadow hid the place;

And I looked in the dark water—saw my pallid cheek reflected—
 * And beside it, looking upward, met an evil reptile face:

Looking upward, furtive, startled at the silent, swift intrusion;
 * Then it darted toward the grasses, and I saw not where it fled;

But I knew its eyes were on me, and the old-time sweet illusion
 * Of the pure and perfect symbol I had cherished there was dead.

O, the pain to know the perjury of seeming truth that blesses!
 * My soul was seared like sin to see the falsehood of the place;