| |
| THE BANQUET-CUPS, of many a hue and shape, | |
| Bossed o’er with gems, were beautiful to view; | |
| But, for the madness of the vaunted grape, | |
| Their only draught was a pure limpid dew, | |
| |
| To Spirits sweet; but these half-mortal lips | 5 |
| Longed for the streams that once on earth they quaffed; | |
| And, half in shame, Tahathyam coldly sips | |
| And craves excuses for the temperate draught. | |
| |
| “Man tastes,” he said, “the grape’s sweet blood that streams | |
| To steep his heart when pained; when sorrowing he | 10 |
| In wild delirium drowns the sense, and dreams | |
| Of bliss arise, to cheat his misery.” | |
| |
| Nor with their dews were any mingling sweets | |
| Save those, to mortal lip, of poison fell; | |
| No murmuring bee was heard in these retreats, | 15 |
| The mineral clod alone supplied their hydromel. | |
| |
| The Spirits while they sat, in social guise, | |
| Pledging each goblet with an answering kiss, | |
| Marked many a Gnome conceal his bursting sighs; | |
| And thought death happier than a life like this. | 20 |
| |
| But they had music; at one ample side | |
| Of the vast area of that sparkling hall, | |
| Fringed round with gems that all the rest outvied, | |
| In form of canopy, was seen to fall | |
| |
| The stony tapestry, over what at first | 25 |
| An altar to some deity appeared; | |
| But it had cost full many a year to adjust | |
| The limpid crystal tubes that ’neath upreared | |
| |
| Their different gleaming lengths; and so complete | |
| Their wondrous rangement, that a tuneful Gnome | 30 |
| Drew from them sounds more varied, clear, and sweet, | |
| Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome. | |
| |
| Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft,—at that quick touch | |
| Such modulation wooed his angel ears | |
| That Zophiël wondered, started from his couch, | 35 |
| And thought upon the music of the spheres. | |
| |
