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I have one other request.

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And I'll recite that now
also, plus a reprise.

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This is called the
"Mirror Perilous."

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And it's a takeoff on
the Narcissus legend.

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The title is from Chaucer.

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The Mirror Perilous--

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I guess there is a garden
named Garden of Love.

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If so, I'm in it.

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I am the guesser in the garden.

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There is a notice by the
central pond that reads,

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Property of Narcissus.

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Trespass at your own risk.

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So I went there.

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That is where, having won
but disdain, the lady,

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he fell for his own
face and died rightly,

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not having followed through,
as the sentence read,

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read by the lady.

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Oh, you could hear her crying
all about the wilderness

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and wickedness of law.

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I looked in that famous mirror
perilous, and it wasn't much.

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My own face, beautiful,
and at the bottom, bone,

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a rusty knife, two beads, and
something else I cannot name.

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I drank my own lips on
the dare but could not

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drink the lips away.

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The water was heavy, cool,
and clear but did not quench.

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A lady laughed behind my back.

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I learned the worst.

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I could take it or
leave it, go or stay.

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So I went back to the
office drunk, possessed

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of an echo but not a fate.

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