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