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LEON
“So slow of courtesy, Sir Dolorous-Face?
Art doubtful? Why, me was it not you sought,
Me, they call Maid, and Lady, of the Sea?
Art dainty? Are my trickling sands too hard?
Nay, but thy knees, forsooth, too proud! Kneel, kneel!
Bow low, do worship! Then—who knows? The boon. . . .”
What with the weltering mist, that of her form
Made something formless, something weird and vague,
Continually drifting, yet unmoved:
What with her mockery, and some blurred shame
Felt in his tangled mind: as a sick man
Resigns his peevish and self-thwarting will
With tacit pleasure to his resolute nurse,
So Leon was reliev’d at her behest,
And knelt.
Now Riance, while she spake with him,
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