Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 1.djvu/216

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Gazing with eye remote on all the waysOf man, his Guardian Gods; wiselier they deemA dearer interest to the human raceLinks you, yourselves the Spirits of the Dead.No mortal eye may pierce the invisible world,No light of human reason penetrateThat depth where Truth lies hid. Yet to this faithMy heart with instant sympathy assents;And I would judge all systems and all faithsBy that best touchstone, from whose test DeceitShrinks like the Arch-Fiend at Ithuriel's spear,And Sophistry's gay glittering bubble bursts,As at the spousals of the Nereid's son,When that false [1]Florimel, by her prototype
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    Then did he set her by that snowy one,Like the true saint beside the image set,Of both their beauties to make paragoneAnd trial whether should the honour get:Streightway so soone as both together met,The enchaunted damzell vanish'd into nought;Her snowy substance melted as with heat,Ne of that goodly hew remayned oughtBut the emptie girdle which about her wast was wrought.Spenser.
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