Ah me! but this is never the fair girl, With brow of light, as lovely as a pearl, That was as beautiful as is the form Of sea-bird at the breaking of a storm. The eye is open, with convulsive strain— A most unfleshly orb! the stars that wane Have nothing of its hue; for it is cast With sickly blood, and terribly aghast! And sunken in its socket like the light Of a red taper in the lonely night! And there is not a braid of her bright hair But lieth floating in the moonlight air, Like the long moss beside a silver spring, In elfin tresses, sadly murmuring. The worm hath ’gan to crawl upon her brow— The living worm! and with a ripple now, Like that upon the sea, are heard below The slimy swarms all ravening as they go, Amid the stagnate vitals, with a crush; And one might hear them echoing the hush Of Julio, as he watches by the side Of the dead ladye, his betrothéd bride! And ever and anon a yellow group Was creeping on her bosom, like a troop Of stars, far up amid the galaxy, Pale, pale, as snowy showers, and two or three Were mocking the cold finger, round and round With likeness of a ring; and, as they wound About its bony girth, they had the hue Of pearly jewels glistening in the dew. That deathly stare! it is an awful thing To gaze upon; and sickly thoughts will spring Before it to the heart: it telleth how There must be waste where there is beauty now. The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow Of that once heaving bosom? even so, The cold, pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade Amid the leprous hues; and o’er it play’d The straggling moonlight and the merry breeze, Like two fair elves that by the murmuring seas Woo’d smilingly together; but there fell No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud That waneth paler even than a shroud, All gorgeous and all glorious before; For waste, like to the wanton night, was o’er Her virgin features, stealing them away— Ah me! ah me! and this is Agathè?