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And Christabel devoutly cried

To the Lady by her side;

"O weary lady, Geraldine,

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I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers."

"And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?"
Christabel answer'd - "Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the grey-hair'd friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!"
"I would," said Geraldine, "she were!"

But soon,

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with alter'd voice, said she — "Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine! I have power to bid thee flee."

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ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843)

FROM THE CURSE OF KEHAMA

XIII. THE RETREAT

O force of faith! O strength of virtuous will! Behold him in his endless martyrdom, Triumphant still!

The curse still burning in his heart and brain,
And yet doth he remain

Patient the while, and tranquil, and content!
The pious soul hath framed unto itself
A second nature, to exist in pain
As in its own allotted element.

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And offer'd to her touch his speckled side; Or with arch'd back erect, and bending head, And eyes half-closed for pleasure, would he stand Courting the pressure of her gentle hand.

Trampling his path through wood and brake, And canes which crackling fall before his way, And tassel-grass, whose silvery feathers play O'ertopping the young trees,

On comes the Elephant to slake His thirst at noon in yon pellucid springs. Lo! from his trunk upturn'd, aloft he flings The grateful shower; and now

Plucking the broad-leaved bough

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