From this delight,
From this wild laughter's surge,
Perchance there may emerge
Foul jealousy and scorn and spite.
But this our glory! and pride!
When thee I despise,
I turn but mine eyes,
And the fair one beside thee will welcome my gaze;
And she is my bride;
Oh, happy, happy days!
Or shall it be her neighbour,
Whose eyes like a sabre
Flash and pierce,
Their glance is so fierce?

Thus capering and prancing,
All together go dancing
Adown life's giddy cave;
Nor living nor loving,
But dizzily roving
Through dreams to a grave.
There below 'tis yet worse;
Its flowers and its clay
Roof a gloomier day,
Hide a still deeper curse.
Ring then, ye cymbals, enliven this dream!
Ye horns, shout a fiercer, more vulture-like scream!
And jump, caper, leap, prance, dance yourselves out of breath!
For your life is all art;
Love has given you no heart:
Therefore shout till ye plunge into bottomless death.

He had ended and was standing at the window. Then came she into the
opposite chamber, lovely, as he had never yet seen her; her brown hair
floated freely and played in wanton ringlets about the whitest of necks;
she was but lightly clad, and it seemed as though she was about to
finish some household task at this late hour of the night before going
to bed; for she placed two lights in two corners of the room, set to
rights the green baize on the table, and again retired. Emilius was
still sunk in his sweet dreams, and gazing on the image which his
beloved had left on his mind, when to his horror the fearful, the
scarlet old woman walked through the chamber; the gold on her head and
breast glared ghastlily as it threw back the light. She had vanished
again. Was he to believe his eyes? Was it not some blinding deception of
the night, some spectre that his own feverish imagination had conjured
up before him? But no! she returned still more hideous than before, with
a long gray-and-black mane flying wildly and ruggedly about her breast
and back. The fair maiden followed her, pale, frozen up; her lovely
bosom was without a covering; but the whole form was like a marble
statue. Betwixt them they led the little sweet child, weeping and
clinging entreatingly to the fair maiden, who looked not down upon it.
The child clasped and lifted up its little beseeching hands, and stroked
the pal