V.

Cold, shivering, stiff in every limb:
With pulse scarce beating, eyes that droop and swim;
With deep-drawn pants and gasping sighs
Long prostrate on the ground she lies;
But gleaming in the Moon's new-risen beam
She sees not far a little puff of steam;
She struggles towards it slowly—half-alive—
That lucky spring will soon her languid frame revive:

It was a sparry basin, smoothly tipped and fringed
With snowy stalactite, just tinged
With a faint delicate flush
Like that white rose, the maiden-blush.
The water seemed a liquid piece of heaven—so blue—
Of midmost heaven a lonely piece
Laid bare by a slight breach in the summer-fleece;
page 189 And look what sparkling crowds of bubbles through
Diaphonous azure, fast and ever
Escaping in the fountain's fever
Are trembling up with timorous haste to greet
And deck with diamond grail the beauteous guest,
As down she sinks into her lucid seat
And in transparent sapphire makes her warm and liquid nest.