And griped me sore; then after some short space
The keen pain seized me in another place;
I felt myself clasped in a rude embrace,
And o’er my body spread swift fleeting pangs,
Sickening and deadly as a serpent’s fangs.
Quivering in every limb then I was ’ware
Of a strange woman bending o’er me there,
With ashen hair, that in the moonlight pale
Rippled about her shoulders like a veil;
In her cold eyes that pierced me through and through,