amed like gold, was graced
With the drooping folds of a silken banner;
And on the poles, in silent pride,
There sat small doves of white enamel;
And the vail from the entrance was drawn aside,
And flung on the humps of a silver camel.
In short it was the sweetest thing
For a weary youth in a wood to light on:
And finer far than what a king
Built up, to prove his taste, at Brighton.
The gilded gate was all unbarred;
And, close beside it, for a guard,
There lay two dwarfs with monstrous noses,
Both fast asleep upon some roses.
Sir Rudolph entered; rich and bright
Was all that met his ravished sight;
Soft tapestries from far countries brought,
Rare cabinets with gems inwrought,
White vases of the finest mould,
And mirrors set in burnished gold.
Upon a couch a grayhound slumbered;
And a small table was encumber'd
With paintings, and an ivory lute,
And sweetmeats, and delicious fruit.
Sir Rudolph lost not time in praising;
For he, I should have said was gazing,
In attitude extremely tragic,
Upon a sight of stranger magic;
A sight, which, seen at such a season,
Might well astonish Mistress Reason,
And scare Dame Wisdom from her fences
Of rules and maxims, moods and tenses.
Beneath a crimson canopy
A lady, passing fair, was lying;
Deep sleep was on her gentle eye,
And in her slumber she was sighing
Bewitching sighs, such sighs as say
Beneath the moonlight, to a lover,
Things which the coward tongue by day
Would not, for all the world, discover:
She lay like a shape of sculptured stone,
So pale, so tranquil:--she had thrown,
For the warm evening's sultriness,
The broidered coverlet aside
And nothing was there to deck or hide
The glory of her loveliness,
But a scarf of gauze, so light and thin
You might see beneath the dazzling skin,
And watch the purple streamlets go
Through the valleys of white and stainless snow,
Or here and there a wayward tress
Which wandered out with vast assurance
From the pearls that kept the rest in durance,
And fluttered about, as if 'twould try
To lure a zephyr from the sky.
"Bertha!"--large drops of anguish came
On Rudolph's brow, as he breathed that name,--
"Oh fair and false one, wake, and fear;
I, the betrayed, the scorned, am here."
The eye moved not from its dull eclipse,
The voice came not from the fast-shut lips;
No matter! we