II.
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saw two beings in the hues of youthStanding upon a hill, a gentle hill,Green and of mild declivity, the lastAs 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 30Save that there was no sea to lave its base,But a most living landscape, and the waveOf woods and cornfields, and the abodes of menScattered at intervals, and wreathing smokeArising from such rustic roofs;--the hillWas crowned with a peculiar diademOf trees, in circular array, so fixed,Not by the sport of nature, but of man:These two, a maiden and a youth, were thereGazing--the one on all that was beneath 40Fair as herself--but the Boy gazed on her;And both were young, and one was beautiful:And both were young--yet not alike in youth.As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood;The Boy had fewer summers, but his heartHad far outgrown his years, and to his eyeThere was but one belovéd face on earth,And that was shining on him: he had lookedUpon it till it could not pass away; 50He had no breath, no being, but in hers;She was his voice; he did not speak to her,But trembled on her words; she was his sight,[i][39]For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,Which coloured all his objects:--he had ceasedTo live within himself; she was his life,The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[40]Which terminated all: upon a tone,A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,[41]And his cheek change tempestuously--his heart 60Unknowing of its cause of agony.But she in these fond feelings had no share:Her sighs were not for him; to her he wasEven as a brother--but no more; 'twas much,For brotherless she was, save in the nameHer infant friendship had bestowed on him;Herself the solitary scion leftOf a time-honoured race.[42]--It was a nameWhich pleased him, and yet pleased him not--and why?Time taught him a deep answer--when she loved 70Another: even _now_ she loved another,And on the summit of that hill she stoodLooking afar if yet her lover's steed[43]Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
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