Then grew the night completer
With light and cloud and air;
Aromas sweet blew sweeter,
Sweet flowers fair, more fair;
Fleet feet and fast grew fleeter
Thro' that fair sorceress there.
AN ANTIQUE.
Mildewed and gray the marble stairs
Rise from their balustraded urns
To where a chiseled satyr glares
From a luxuriant bed of ferns;
A pebbled walk that labyrinths
'Twixt parallels of verdant box
To where, broad-based on grotesque plinths,
'Mid cushions of moss-padded rocks,
Rises a ruined pleasure-house,
Of shattered column, broken dome,
Where, reveling in thick carouse,
The buoyant ivy makes its home.
And here from bank, and there from bed,
Down the mad rillet's jubilant lymph,
The lavish violet's odors shed
In breathings of a fountain nymph.
And where, in lichened hoariness,
The broken marble dial-plate
Basks in the Summer's sultriness,
Rich houri roses palpitate.
Voluptuous, languid with perfumes,
As were the beauties that of old,
In damask satins, jeweled plumes,
With powdered gallants here that strolled.
When slender rapiers, proud with gems,
Sneered at the sun their haughty hues,
And Touchstone wit and apothegms
Laughed down the long, cool avenues.