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Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree, |
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While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell |
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Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell, |
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The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. |
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But to what sound her listening ear stoops she? |
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What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear, |
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In answering echoes from what planisphere, |
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Along the wind, along the estuary? |
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She sinks into her spell: and when full soon |
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Her lips move and she soars into her song, |
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What creatures of the midmost main shall throng |
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In furrowed self-clouds to the summoning rune, |
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Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, |
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And up her rock, bare breasted, comes to die? |