"Ah! Love, my hope is swooning in my heart,--"
"Ay, sweet, my cage is strong and hung full high--"
"Alas! our lips are held so far apart,
Thy words come faint,--they have so far to fly!--"
"If I may only shun that serpent-eye,--"
"Ah me! that serpent-eye doth never sleep;--"
"Then, nearer thee, Love's martyr, I will die!--"
"Alas, alas! that word has made me weep!
For pity's sake remain safe in thy marble keep!"


XXIII.

"My marble keep! it is my marble tomb--"
"Nay, sweet! but thou hast there thy living breath--"
"Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom;--"
"But I will come to thee and sing beneath,"
"And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath;--"
"Nay, I will find a path from these despairs."
"Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of death,
Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs.--
Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares!"


XXIV.

Full sudden at these words, the princely youth
Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still
Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth,
But numb'd to dulness by the fairy skill