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PERDITA
11
Stately
She moves, half smiling
With girlish look beguiling,—
A dawn-like grace in all her face;
Stately she moves, sedately,
Through the crowd circling round her;
But—swift as light—
See! she takes flight!
Empty, alas! is her place.
Follow her, follow her, let her not go!
Mirth ended so—
Why, 't is but woe!
Follow her, follow her! Perdita!—lo,
Love hath with wreaths enwound her!
She dances,
And I seem to see
The nymph divine, Terpsichore,
As when her beauty dazzling shone
On eerie heights of Helicon.
With bursts of song her voice entrances
The dreamy, blossom-scented air,
And she seems to me as the wood-fawn, free,
And as the wild rose, fair.
