Thus he grew so rich that he seldom looked at the dark butterfly in the silver cage—but sometimes, in the night, he heard the beating of its wings.
[THE RAGS OF QUEEN COPHETUA]
hen the first dazzle of bewildered happiness in her new estate had faded from her eyes, and the miracle of her startling metamorphosis from a wandering beggar-maid to a great Queen on a throne was beginning to lose a little of its wonder and to take its place among the accepted realities of life, Queen Cophetua became growingly conscious of some dim dissatisfaction and unrest in her heart.
Indeed, she had all that the world could give, and surely all that a woman's heart is supposed to desire. The King's love was still hers as when he found her at dawn by the pool in the forest; and, in exchange for the tattered rags which had barely concealed the water-lily whiteness of her body, countless wardrobes were filled with garments of every variety of subtle design and exquisite fabric, textures light as the golden sun, purple as the wine-dark sea, iridescent as the rainbow, and soft as summer clouds—the better to set off her strange beauty for the eyes of the King.
And, every day of the year, the King brought her a new and priceless jewel to hang about her neck, or wear upon her moonbeam hands, or to shine in the fragrant night of her hair.
Ah! what a magical wooing that had been in the depths of the forest, that strange morning! The sun was hardly above the tops of the trees when she had awakened from sleep at the mossy foot of a giant beech, and its first beams were casting a solemn enchantment across a great pool of water-lilies and filling their ivory cups with strange gold. She had lain still a while, watching through her sleepy eyelids the unfolding marvel of the dawn; and then rousing herself, she had knelt by the pool, and letting down her long hair that fell almost to her feet had combed and braided it, with the pool for her mirror—a mirror with water-lilies for its frame. And, as she gazed at herself in the clear water, with a girlish happiness in her own beauty, a shadow fell over the pond; and, startled, she saw beside her own face in the mirror the face of a beautiful young knight, so it seemed, bending over her shoulder. In fear and maiden modesty—for her hair was only half braided, and, whiter than any water-lily in the pond, her bosom glowed bare in the morning sunlight—she turned around, and met the eyes of the King.
Without moving, each gazed at the other as in a dream—eyes lost fathom-deep in eyes.