Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love,

Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon,

Like Danaë within the golden shower.

Seated beside her aromatic rest,

In rapture musing on her loveliness,

Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope

The curious baldric of his tunic, glints

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With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem

The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies.

In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold,

Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills,

He bends above her.—

Have his hands forgot

Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings?

His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?—

His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone

His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel,

In terrible marble, motionless and cold?—

Behind the arras, can it be he feels,

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