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Hard by the lilied Nile I saw A duskish river-dragon stretched along, The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl: And on his back there lay a young one sleeping, No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads, And a small fragment of its speckled egg Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout; A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch The baulking merry flies. In the iron jaws Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew A snowy trochilus, with roseate beak Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.
We do lie beneath the grass
In the moonlight, in the shade
Of the yew-tree. They that pass
Hear us not. We are afraid
They would envy our delight,
In our graves by glow-worm night.
Come follow us, and smile as we;
We sail to the rock in the ancient waves,
Where the snow falls by thousands into the sea,
And the drown'd and the shipwreck'd have happy graves.
I.
As mad sexton’s bell, tolling
For earth’s loveliest daughter,
Night’s dumbness breaks rolling
Ghostily:
So our boat breaks the water
Witchingly.
II.
As her look the dream troubles
Of her tearful-eyed lover,
So our sails in the bubbles
Ghostily
Are mirrored, and hover
Moonily.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!