Struck with each other's charms they loved, but unhappily the nymph, in her
anxiety for her lover's immortality, and while calling upon her mistress to
assist her, saw
------------------"The Witch Queen of that place,
Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a death
Which I feared, and yet fled not, for want of my breath,
There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised
From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed
Her hate--"
{129}
This hate Lycus soon experienced; as the spell desired by the nymph, was in
the act of being pronounced,
--------------------"I felt with a start,
The life blood rush back in one throb to my heart,
And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell
Had perished in terror, and heard the farewell
Of that voice that was drowned in the dash of the stream!
How fain had I followed, and plunged with that scream
Into death, but my being indignantly lagged
Thro' the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragged
Behind me--"