"Aye to expend in sighs for this hard doom;—"
"But I will come to thee and sing beneath,"
"And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath;—"
"Nay, I will find a path from these despairs."
"Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of death,
Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs.—
Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares!"
XIV.
Full sudden at these words, the princely youth
Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still