(From Book “Le Grand.”)
In olden legends, golden castles stood
Where harps were sounding, beauteous maidens danced,
And spruce attendants flash’d, and jessamine
And rose and myrtle shed their fragrance round—
And yet one single word of disenchantment
Made all this splendour in a moment vanish,
And nought remain’d behind but olden ruins
And croaking birds of night and drear morass.
So have I, too, with but one single word,
All Nature’s blooming glories disenchanted.
There lies she now, as lifeless, cold, and pale
As some bedizen’d regal corpse might be,
Whose cheekbones have been colour’d red by art,
And in whose hand a sceptre hath been placed.
His lips however wither’d look and yellow,
For they forgot to dye them red as well;
And mice are springing o’er his regal nose,
And ridicule the pond’rous golden sceptre.