The banquet-cups, of many a hue and shape, Bossed o’er with gems, were beautiful to view; But, for the madness of the vaunted grape, Their only draught was a pure limpid dew, To Spirits sweet; but these half-mortal lips Longed for the streams that once on earth they quaffed; And, half in shame, Tahathyam coldly sips And craves excuses for the temperate draught. “Man tastes,” he said, “the grape’s sweet blood that streams To steep his heart when pained; when sorrowing he In wild delirium drowns the sense, and dreams Of bliss arise, to cheat his misery.” Nor with their dews were any mingling sweets Save those, to mortal lip, of poison fell; No murmuring bee was heard in these retreats, The mineral clod alone supplied their hydromel. The Spirits while they sat, in social guise, Pledging each goblet with an answering kiss, Marked many a Gnome conceal his bursting sighs; And thought death happier than a life like this. But they had music; at one ample side Of the vast area of that sparkling hall, Fringed round with gems that all the rest outvied, In form of canopy, was seen to fall The stony tapestry, over what at first An altar to some deity appeared; But it had cost full many a year to adjust The limpid crystal tubes that ’neath upreared Their different gleaming lengths; and so complete Their wondrous rangement, that a tuneful Gnome Drew from them sounds more varied, clear, and sweet, Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome. Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft,—at that quick touch Such modulation wooed his angel ears That Zophiël wondered, started from his couch, And thought upon the music of the spheres.
The Respite
More from Poet
-
Day, in melting purple dying; Blossoms, all around me sighing; Fragrance, from the lilies straying; Zephyr, with my ringlets playing; Ye but waken my distress; I am sick of loneliness! Thou, to whom I love to hearken, Come, ere night around me darken; Though thy softness but deceive...
-
Adieu, fair isle! I love thy bowers, I love thy dark-eyed daughters there; The cool pomegranate’s scarlet flowers Look brighter in their jetty hair. They praised my forehead’s stainless white; And when I thirsted, gave a draught From the full clustering cocoa’s height, And smiling,...
-
Day in melting purple dying, Blossoms all around me sighing, Fragrance from the lilies straying, Zephyr with my ringlets playing, Ye but waken my distress: I am sick of loneliness. Thou to whom I love to hearken, Come ere night around me darken: Though thy softness but deceive me, Say...
-
The banquet-cups, of many a hue and shape, Bossed o’er with gems, were beautiful to view; But, for the madness of the vaunted grape, Their only draught was a pure limpid dew, To Spirits sweet; but these half-mortal lips Longed for the streams that once on earth they quaffed; And, half in...
-
High towered the palace and its massive pile, Made dubious if of nature or of art, So wild and so uncouth; yet, all the while, Shaped to strange grace in every varying part. And groves adorned it, green in hue, and bright As icicles about a laurel-tree; And danced about their twigs a...