Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/149

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II.

How could he vindicate himself? His eyes,

That found not anywhere their proper prize,
Looked through and through the specious earth and skies,

They probed, and all things yielded to their probe;
They saw the void around the massy globe,
The raging fire within its flowery robe.

They pierced through beauty; saw the bones, the mesh
Of nerves and veins, the hideous raw red flesh,
Beneath the skin most delicate and fresh:

Saw Space a mist unfurled around the steep
Where plunge Time's waters to the blackest deep;
Saw Life a dream in Death's eternal sleep.

III.

A certain fair form came before his sight,

Responding to him as the day to night:
To yearning, love; to cold and gloom, warm light.