'Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!'
"That curst magician's name fell icy numb
Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come
Naked and sabre-like against my heart.
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,
Fainted away in that dark lair of night.
Think, my deliverer, how desolate
My waking must have been! disgust, and hate,
And terrors manifold divided me
A spoil amongst them. I prepar'd to flee
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:
I fled three days- when lo! before me stood
Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now,
A clammy dew is beading on my brow,
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse.
'Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse
'Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express,
'To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes,
'I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:
'My tenderest squeeze is but a giant's clutch.
'So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies
'Unheard of yet: and it shall still its cries
'Upon some breast more lilly-feminine.
'Oh, no- it shall not pine, and pine, and pine
'More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;
'And then 'twere pity, but fate's gentle shears
'Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt!
'Young dove of the waters! truly I'll not hurt
'One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,
'That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.
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