“Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments.”
(ll. 153–156.)
The effect of this sense witchery is seen in the forebodings of The Lady’s fancy and in the hallucinations that haunt her mind as she comes within the range of its spells. She says:
“A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names