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ushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity. Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair; Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare, Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song, Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along, With purple sail and steered by seraph hands To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance. And out of this old house a flowery fane, A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome, They built, and furnished it with gold and grain, And bade all spirits of beauty hither come, And winged Love to enter with his train And bless their pillow, and in this his home Make them his priests as Hero was of yore In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore. Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought, Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste, Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced; Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught, And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed To light the lounger on some low divan, Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan. And there was spread, upon the ample floors, Work of the Levantine's laborious loom, Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom. Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom, And little birds through wicker doors left wide Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside. And there was many a dainty attitude, Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed, Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid Lest aught in that palatial solitude Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid. Therefore forever faltering she stands, Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands. Close by upon a beryl column, clad In the fresh flower of adolescent grace, They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad, The nude Antinous. That gentle face, Forever beautiful, forever sad, Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze, Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile. And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more, Clustering their rosy bridal bed around, Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground, Fit to have
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