| Over there in a grove surrounded by flowers slumbers the
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| Hermaphrodite, sound asleep upon sward, drenched with his tears.
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| The moon’s disc is clear of the cloud mass and
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| with pale beams she caresses this smooth youthful form.
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| His features manifest the most manly
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| vigour coeval with a heavenly virgin’s grace.
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| Nothing in him apears natura, not even the muscle of his body,
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| which force their way across the
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| harmonious contours of feminine forms.
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| One arm curves over his forehead,
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| the other hand rests against his breast as if to repress the beat of
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| a heart closed to all confidences,
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| and fraught with The Weighty Burden of an Eternal Secret.
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| Weary of life and ashamed to walk among beings who do not resemble
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| him, despairhas won his soul and he
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| wanders alone like a beggar in the alley.
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| How does he find the wherewithal to exist?
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| Compassionate souls watch over him closely,
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| without his suspecting such
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| surveillance, and do not abandon him: he is so good…
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| so resigned.
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| Sometimes he talks readily to those os sensitive disposition,
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| without touching their hands,
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| and standing his distance for fear of an imagined danger.
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| If asked why he has taken solitude for companion,
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| he raises his eyes heavenward and has difficulty holding back a tear
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| of reproach against providence,
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| but he does not answer this imprudent question,
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| which sheds upon his snowy eyelids the blush of a morning rose |