Pressed hard to slip the tightened chain.

What would that eager hunter gain?

Some magic thing whose form and hue

Still changed as he did close pursue—

A flame, a bubble of the air?

A woman, marvellously fair?

Yea, every shape it hath in turn

That makes man’s troubled soul to burn,

And doth his baffled sight elude

To leave the world a solitude.