IV.

As one who walking in a forest sees A lovely landscape through the parted trees, Then sees it not, for boughs that intervene; Or, as we see the moon sometimes reveal'd Through drifting clouds, and then again conceal'd, So I behold the scene.

There are two guests at table now; The king, deposed and older grown, No longer occupies the throne,-- The crown is on his sister's brow; A Princess from the Fairy Isles, The very pattern girl of girls, All cover'd and embower'd in curls, Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers, And sailing with soft, silken sails From far-off Dreamland into ours. Above their bowls with rims of blue Four azure eyes of deeper hue Are looking, dreamy with delight; Limpid as planets that emerge Above the ocean's rounded verge, Soft-shining through the summer night. Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see Beyond the horizon of their bowls; Nor care they for the world that rolls With all its freight of troubled souls Into the days that are to be.