33

A PALACE.

In a vast court are many fountains playing,
Upon their silver spray the moonlight falls,
With broken shadows down their long line straying,
About them stand the great quadrangle walls.

Like spreading lakes the even waters sleeping Within their banks of marble brim the space; Bright columns upward from their surface leaping, And flashing through the wide enchanted place.

The countless casements from afar look down,
The moonbeams sparkle on them full and fair,

I never once have seen them open thrown,
Nor any face for but a moment there.

D

In the lone nights it is a long delight

To bathe at will in those moon-lighted waves, Floating from fountain unto fountain white, Into the heart of their foam-wreathen caves.

Where, bubbling up and up and curling o'er,
Their mazy circles break, and from them all
A thousand waves at once bewildering pour
In the swift dashing of the waterfall.

And passing under them, to lie beside

The tall thin columns held in glittering thread, That high in air drop their cold showers aside, Slow and delicious on the yielding bed.

Enfolded round in all that liquid chillness,
Shadowed among the shadows, it is sweet,

Borne scarcely moving through the smoothed stillness,
Where musical the flowing waters meet.

I weary not, for ever-changing dashes

From the dark ripple of the endless pool The margin-mist of pearl, and diamond flashes

Shoot towards the stars, with wafts of winnowing cool.

Ceaseless they stream, far down in rapid glimmer

They mingle still and pour above, below,

Passing into the shadow dim and dimmer ;-
I have not seen their end nor where they go.

I cannot tell within what lonely land

These watery ranges are enclosed and laid, Nor the surrounding piles that silent stand. Stretching afar in broken light and shade.

Nor by what spell at nights they reappear,
When they have long been lost and out of mind
The same as they have stood for many a year,
With darkness all around them and behind.

These marble courts have been so long deserted, My step the solitude rings through and through, Half fearful of itself and half uncertain

If in its echoes others mingle too.

Some presence, hiding part and part revealing, Lurks in each darkling porch and buttress cleft;

From pillar unto pillar quickly stealing,

I cross the ground, looking not right nor left.

Till shelterless the moon's full rays discover
A terrible white stretch of snow-white stone;
An unknown peril drives me breathless over,
Yet having passed, I still am there alone.

And entering through the palace-doorways open, I find the vast and empty halls my own; Year after year the place has been familiar,

Yet its whole length has never yet been known.

Dimly and softly lamps unseen are burning
All down the endless vista every side,

Broad flights of stately stairs lead upward turning
In shadowy heights, and right and left divide.

And other sombre staircases are leading
Down underground mysterious and cold;
Opening all round, and out of sight receding
The long and vaulted corridors unfold.

Into this deep and labyrinthine hollow,

Where the same mild unchanging light has shone,

Fearless and with a keen intent I follow

Through empty passages still on and on.

Each time I find myself within the winding

Of this low wandering crypt known but to me, This time at least must fortune favour, finding

At last, I hope, the long-sought mystery.

Yet it remaineth without end or reading,
Suddenly gone, before I touch the clue :-
On other days my search bends upwards, leading
To the dim galleries lengthened out of view.

Door after door all down the archways splendid

I open and I enter, and behold

The dusky rows of chambers never-ended,
All richly furnished, waiting as of old.

But never any sign of presence living,

Nor sound of any movement but my own,
As fast I tread the floors of velvet giving
A muffled echo to my steps alone.

They stand and wait, in unexplorèd number, Darkling in gloom confused that shifts and errs. -Through the recesses of its charmed slumber,

Yet are there other nights when something stirs.