Beyond this child: so, when sad Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream. hours were come, And baffled hope like ice still clung to me, Since kin were cold, and friends had now become Heartless and false, I turned from all to be, Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee. XXII What wert thou then? A child most infantine, Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age In all but its sweet looks and mien divine : XXIV As mine own shadow was this child to me, A second self, far dearer and more fair, Which clothed in undissolving radiancy All those steep paths which languor and despair Of human things had made so dark and bare, But which I trod alone-nor, till bereft Of friends, and overcome by lonely care, Knew I what solace for that loss was left, Even then, methought, with the Though by a bitter wound my trusting world's tyrant rage A patient warfare thy young heart did wage, When those soft eyes of scarcely con scious thought heart was cleft. XXV Once she was dear, now she was all I had To love in human life-this playmate sweet, This child of twelve years old-so she was made My sole associate, and her willing feet Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet, Beyond the aërial mountains whose vast cells The unreposing billows ever beat, Through forests wide and old, and lawny dells One impulse of her being-in her Where boughs of incense droop over the |