Crouched o'er his couch. About her heart the blood
Caught, strangling; then rose throbbing, thud on thud,
Up to her wide-stretched eyes, and up and up,
As wine might, whirling wildly in a cup.
Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth
Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South
Trickling through perplexed ripples of the leaves;
To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves
Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet—
Feet softer than the sifted snows and fleet