OF TEMPER.
87
Starts at the wound, and feels his bosom thrill
With pain and wonder at the sudden ill:
So did Serena start, so wildly gaze,
In such mixt pangs of anguish and amaze,
Feeling the wound which Scandal had design'd
To lacerate her mild and modest mind.
Startled, as one who from electric wire
Unheeding catches unsuspected fire,
She reads, then almost doubts that she has read,
And thinks some vision hovers round her head;
Now, her fixt eye some striking words confine,
And now she darts it thrice thro' every line;
Nor could amazement more her senses shake,
Had every letter been a gorgon's snake.
Now risin indignation takes its turn,
And her flush'd cheeks with tingling blushes burn,
With restless motion and with many a frown,
Thro' the wide room she paces up and down:
Now, musing, makes a momentary stand,
The fatal paper fluttering in her hand.
With pain and wonder at the sudden ill:
So did Serena start, so wildly gaze,
In such mixt pangs of anguish and amaze,
Feeling the wound which Scandal had design'd
To lacerate her mild and modest mind.
Startled, as one who from electric wire
Unheeding catches unsuspected fire,
She reads, then almost doubts that she has read,
And thinks some vision hovers round her head;
Now, her fixt eye some striking words confine,
And now she darts it thrice thro' every line;
Nor could amazement more her senses shake,
Had every letter been a gorgon's snake.
Now risin indignation takes its turn,
And her flush'd cheeks with tingling blushes burn,
With restless motion and with many a frown,
Thro' the wide room she paces up and down:
Now, musing, makes a momentary stand,
The fatal paper fluttering in her hand.
