They moved to measure, or bell clappers.

I said, "Is it blessing, is it banning,

Do they applaud you or burlesque you—

Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?"

But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue,

At once I was stopped by the lady's expression:

For it was life her eyes were drinking

From the crone's wide pair above unwinking,

—Life's pure fire received without shrinking,

Into the heart and breast whose heaving