Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/47

 Rh ::::::18.
 * The honey of her infant lips,
 * The bread and wine of her sweet smile,
 * The wild game of her roving eye
 * Do him to infancy beguile,


 * 19.
 * For as he eats and drinks he grows
 * Younger and younger every day,
 * And on the desert wild they both
 * Wander in terror and dismay.


 * 20.
 * Like the wild stag, she flees away,
 * Her fear plants many a thicket wild ;
 * While he pursues her, night and day,
 * By various arts of love beguiled.


 * 21.
 * By various arts of love and hate,
 * Till the wild desert's planted o'er
 * With labyrinths of wayward love,
 * Where roam the lion, wolf, and boar.


 * 22.
 * Till he becomes a wayward babe,
 * And she a weeping woman old ;
 * Then many a lover wanders here,
 * The sun and stars are nearer rolled.


 * 23.
 * The trees bring forth sweet ecstacy
 * To all who in the desert roam,
 * Till many a city there is built,
 * And many a pleasant shepherd's home.


 * 24.
 * But when they find the frowning babe,
 * Terror strikes through the region wild ;
 * They cry : " The babe ! the babe is born ! "
 * And flee away on every side.


 * 25.
 * For who dare touch the frowning form
 * His arm is withered to the root ;
 * Bears, lions, wolves, all howling fly,
 * And every tree doth shed its fruit.


 * 26.
 * And none can touch that frowning form,
 * Except it be a woman old ;
 * She nails him down upon a rock,
 * And all is done as I have told.


 * VOL. II.                     3