The coldly cruel meaning of whose sense
Smote down the shield of her false innocence.
She strove to wrest her eye from his in vain,
Held by that gaze ophidian like a bird,
As in a trance she neither breathed nor stirred.
And gazing thus an icy little lance,
Smaller than quill from wing of humming-bird,
Shot from his eyes, and a keen stinging pain
Sped through the open windows of her brain.
Her senses failed, she sank upon the ground,