4
THE IMPROVISATRICE.
My first was of a gorgeous hall,
Lighted up for festival;
Braided tresses, and cheeks of bloom,
Diamond agraff, and foam-white plume;
Censers of roses, vases of light
Like what the moon sheds on a summer night.
Youths and maidens with linked hands,
Joined in the graceful sarabands,
Smiled on the canvass; but apart
Was one who leant in silent mood,
As revelry to his sick heart
Were worse than veriest solitude.
Pale, dark-eyed, beautiful, and young,
Such as he had shone o’er my slumbers,
When I had only slept to dream
Over again his magic numbers.
