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

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THE MENTAL TRAVELLER.
33
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