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O’er whose blue waters, as they flow along,

Some olden romance hovers like a dream,

In saffron hues of terra di Sienna.

There traveled with this scholar a young woman

Whose beauty smote Sordino at first sight,

And made him captive unaware; how strange!

Since he had thought himself outside the range,

Now two score ten, ev’n of the wildest flight

Of any arrow from the little bow-man.

But such is man, who thinks, he knows himself,

And—like Sordino—very much besides,

Quite fortified by wisdom’s splendid armor,

Who thinks his heart is dead to any charmer,

Will suddenly discover that there hides

Within its chambers still a little elf.

She was a coy, elusive little creature,

Uncaptured yet by suitors manifold,

Her father’s only child, and motherless,

Whose cheerfulness his saddened heart did bless,

Whose eyes of Danube blue and hair of gold,

Commingled with her Mother’s Grecian feature.

She was proficient in the classic learning,

Read Greek and Latin like her native tongue,