On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery

4.

And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft

Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;

Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft

Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise

Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,

And he comes hastening like a moth that hies

After a taper; and the midnight sky

Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.

5.

’Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;

For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare

Kindled by that inextricable error,

Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air

Become a … and ever-shifting mirror

Of all the beauty and the terror there—

A woman’s countenance, with serpent-locks,

Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks.