Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell To wander, fore-doomed, in that circle of hell Where Witchery works with her will like a god, Works more than the wonders of time at a nod,-- At a word,--at a touch,--at a flash of the eye, But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a lie, Things born of a wish--to endure for a thought, Or last for long ages--to vanish to nought, Or put on new semblance? O Jove, I had given The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven, And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or whether They kept the world's birthday and brighten'd together! For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded That the earth where I trod, and the cave where I bedded, The face I might dote on, should live out the lease Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease: And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream To another--each horrid,--and drank of the stream Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff'd Swift poison, and never should breathe from the draught,-- Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes in the cup. And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a fear That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear; For once, at my suppering, I plucked in the dusk An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk; But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore, And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the core; And once--only once--for the love of its blush, I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a gush On my hand, that it fainted away in weak fright, While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight; And oh! such an agony thrill'd in that note, That my soul, startling up, beat its wings in my throat, As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd! There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree,-- Oh! for innocent death,--and to suddenly win it, I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it; I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink, Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink; I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight; I ran at my fears--they were fears and no more, For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the boar, But moan'd--all their brutalized flesh could not smother The horrible truth,--we were kin to each other!