43 STY-SONG
Reading edition
—After Nicolas de Caen.
As with her dupes dealt Circê, Life deals with hers, for she Reshapes them without mercy, And shapes them swinishly, To wallow swinishly, And for eternity;— Though, harder than the witch was, Life, changing not the whole, Transmutes the body, which was Proud garment of the soul, And briefly drugs the soul, Whose ruin is her goal;— And means by this thereafter A subtler mirth to get, And mock with bitterer laughter Her helpless dupes’ regret, Their swinish dull regret For what they half forget.