Merlin. Faces?

Mordred. I never saw it in my poor dog’s face,

When he hath climbed my knees to lick my hand.

I never saw it in the mirrored peace

That brims the beauty of a forest pool;—

Nor in the wise regard of mighty nature.

But in the face of man I oft have seen it.

Merlin. What hast thou seen, this wisdom would I know?

[Pg 7]

[Pg 7]

Mordred. I never saw it in thy look, O Mage,

But something sweeter, much akin, called pity,

But once I woke a flower-eyed little maid,

Who slumbered ’mid the daisies by a stream;

She seemed the summer day incarnate there

With her sweet, innocent, unconscious face,

So like a flower herself amid the flowers;

And I were lonely there in all that vast,

And thinking, (’twas only but a boy’s light thought,

With some deep, other thought beyond mine age,)

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