'O Beauteous world! what features fair
Thine needs would show beyond compare,
If it were possible to find
Thy glories all in one combined!
Show me, O Lord, the world -- the bright
Fair world reveal unto my sight.'

This prayer the youth had made, whose way
Soon after through the desert lay,
Where he far off a woman spied,
Wandering, by none accompanied.
'Who art thou?' he exclaimed.--'In me
See her whom thou hast longed to see.'
--'What meanest thou?' More plain reply
This time she made--'The world am I.'
--'Then let me see thy countenance fair,
Which doth so many hearts ensnare.'
She from her face the veil withdrew,
And straight the hidden was in view,
A visage painted all and bleared,
Where signs of lust and hate appeared:
One bloody hand she raised on high,
Crooked was the other and awry.
'How? what is this?' he shuddering
Exclaimed--'Who art thou, loathsome thing?'
'I with this bloody hand,' she said,
'Do ever strike my lovers dead:
The other hand its shape has won
With beckoning yet more lovers on;
Those ever hurl I forth with might,
And these with flatteries I invite.
Even I admire, while thus I show,
I never lack of lovers know.'
--'But tell me yet, how this may be,
That when such thousands wait on thee
Already, thou dost ever seek
More lovers still?' She then did speak:
'Though these are thousands, never yet
A man among them have I met;
Who rightly bear of man the name,
My company avoid like shame;
And thus remain I desolate,
Even while on me such thousands wait.'

My brother, let her answer be
Deep graven on thy memory:
A man, my brother, wouldst thou prove,
Far keep thee from this woman's love.