Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/104

90 Of immortality. With closer vows, The knight then sealed his worship and forswore All other aims and deeds to serve her cause. Thus passed unnoted seven barren years Of reckless passion and voluptuous sloth, Undignified by any lofty thought In his degraded mind, that sometime was Endowed with noble capability. From revelry to revelry he passed. Craving more pungent pleasures momently, And new intoxications, and each hour The siren goddess answered his desires. Once when she left him with a weary sense Of utter lassitude, he sat alone, And, raising listless eyes, he saw himself In a great burnished mirror, wrought about With cunning imagery of twisted vines. He scarcely knew those sunken, red-rimmed eyes, And haggard cheeks, and hollow-smiling lips, For his who in the flush of manhood rode Among the cliffs, and followed up the crags The flying temptress ; and there fell on him A horror of her beauty, a disgust For his degenerate and corrupted life, With irresistible, intense desire, To feel the breath of heaven on his face. Then as Fate willed, who rules above the gods, He saw, within the glass, behind him glide The form of Venus. Certain of her power, She had laid by, in fond security,