Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/161

 
And she is all of solid fire
And gems and gold, that none his hand
Dares stretch to touch her baby form,
Or wrap her in his swaddling band.

But she comes to the man she loves,
If young or old, or rich or poor,
They soon drive out the aged host,
A beggar at another's door.
 
He wanders, weeping, far away,
Until some other take him in;
Oft blind and age-bent, sore distress'd,
Until he can a maiden win:
 
And to allay his freezing age,
The poor man takes her in his arms;
The cottage fades before his sight,
The garden and its lovely charms;
 
The guests are scatter'd through the land,
For the eye altering alters all;
The senses roll themselves in fear,
And the flat earth becomes a ball;

The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away,
A desert vast without a bound,
And nothing left to eat or drink,
And a dark desert all around: