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Lucile

By Owen Meredith [i.e. E. R. B. Lytton]
  

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III.

I marvel less, therefore, that, having already
Torn open this note, with a hand most unsteady,
Lord Alfred now dash'd it away with a cry
Of angry surprise. If a shell from the sky
On the board, where he then sat at breakfast, had bounded
And burst, he could scarcely have look'd more astounded,
Or more speedily spurn'd it.
The month is September;
Time, morning; the scene at Bigorre; (pray remember
These facts, gentle reader, because I intend
To fling all the unities by at the end.)
He walk'd to the window. The morning was chill:
The brown woods were crisp'd in the cold on the hill:
The sole thing abroad in the streets was the wind:
And the straws on the gust, like the thoughts in his mind,
Rose, and eddied around and around, as tho' teasing
Each other. The prospect, in truth, was unpleasing:

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And Lord Alfred, whilst moodily gazing around it,
To himself more than once (vex'd in soul) sigh'd......
‘Confound it!’