Or, in the same poem:—
What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit
His humours while I cross’d him. O the life
I led him, and the dalliance and the wit,
into
We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which outburn’d Canopus. O my life
In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife.
Or, in Mariana in the South:—
She mov’d her lips, she pray’d alone,
She praying, disarray’d and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
In the dark lustrous mirror shone,
into
Complaining, “Mother, give me grace
To help me of my weary load”.
And on the liquid mirror glow’d
The clear perfection of her face.
How happy is this slight alteration in the verses To J. S. which corrects one of the falsest notes ever struck by a poet:—
A tear
Dropt on my tablets as I wrote.
A tear
Dropt on the letters as I wrote.