Lest he should smile at me, and I should slay him:

I tell it thee, knowing thou wilt not smile.

Now late it happed that I returned to Fez

After some longer absence than was wont;

And looking still to meet the child I left,

I found her not. She had made a dizzy flight

From prettiest to fairest. Slow-working time

Had leapt in a miracle: ere one could say,

From being a child suddenly she was a woman,

Changed beyond hope, to me past hope unchanged.