Page:Joan of Arc - Southey (1796).djvu/60

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48
JOAN OF ARC.

Themselves probationary, and denied
Confessed to view by preternatural deed
To overwhelm the will, save on some fated day130
Headstrong, or with petition'd might from God.

And such perhaps the guardian Power whose ken
Still dwelt on France. He from the Invisible World
Burst on the Maiden's eye, impregning Air
With Voices and strange Shapes, illusions apt,135
Shadowy of Truth. And first a landscape rose
More wild and waste and desolate, than where
The white bear drifting on a field of ice
Howls to her sunder'd cubs with piteous rage
And savage agony. Mid the drear scene140
A craggy mass uprear'd its misty brow,
Untouch'd by breath of Spring, unwont to know
Red Summer's influence, or the chearful face
Of Autumn; yet its fragments many and huge
Astounded ocean with the dreadful dance 145
Of whirlpools numberless, absorbing oft

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