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So wrote the Lady Imogen—the child
Of Poetry and Passion—all her frame
So lightly, exquisitely shaped, we dream'd
'Twas fashion'd to some melody of heaven,
The fairest, airiest creature ever made—
Flower-like in her fragility and grace,
Childlike in sweet impetuous tenderness,
Yet with a nature proud, profound, and pure,
As a rapt sybil's. O'er her soul had passed

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The wild simoom of wo, but to awake
From that Eolian lyre the loveliest tones
Of mournful music, passionately sad.
Not thus her love the haughty Ida breathed:
Alone, apart, in her own soul world dreaming—
Of an ideal beauty calm and high,—
O'er the patrician paleness of her cheek
Came seldom, and how softly! the faint blush
Of irrepressible tenderness.