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ten to the ditty From the lowly cave of Pity. On slaughter's plain, while Valour grieves, There he sunk to rest, And the ring-dove scattered leaves Upon his bleeding breast! Her face was hid, while her pale arms enfold What seemed an urn of alabaster cold; 140 To this she pressed her heaving bosom bare: The drops that gathered in the dank abode Fell dripping, on her long dishevelled hair; And still her tears, renewed, and silent, flowed: And when the winds of autumn ceased to swell, At times was heard a slow and melancholy knell! 'Twas in the twilight of the deepest wood, Beneath whose boughs like sad Cocytus, famed Through fabling Greece, from lamentation named[101] A river dark and silent flowed, there stood 150 A pale and melancholy man, intent His look upon that drowsy stream he bent, As ever counting, when the fitful breeze With strange and hollow sound sung through the trees, Counting the sallow leaves, that down the current went. He saw them not: Earth seemed to him one universal blot. Sometimes, as most distempered, to and fro He paced; and sometimes fixed his chilling look Upon a dreadful book, 160 Inscribed with secret characters of woe; While gibbering imps, as mocking him, appeared, And airy laughter 'mid the dusk was heard. Then Fancy waved her wand again, And all that valley that so lovely smiled Was changed to a bare champaign, waste and wild. "What pale and phantom-horseman rides amain?" 'Tis Terror;--all the plain, far on, is spread With skulls and bones, and relics of the dead! From his black trump he blew a louder blast, 170 And earthquakes muttered as the giant passed. Then said that magic maid, with aspect bland, 'Tis thine to seize his phantom spear, 'Tis thine his sable trumpet to command, And thrill the inmost heart with shuddering fear. But hark! to Music's softer sound, New scenes and fairer views accordant rise: Above, around, The mingled measure swells in air, and dies. Music, in thy charmed shell, 180 What sounds of holy magic dwell! Oft when that shell was to the ear applied, Confusion of ric
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