SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT
Until the shapes of death advance
And gather round her, shrieking loud
And wailing o’er the wide expanse
Of sand, the gibbering, mewing crowd.
Like cats, and apes, they gather close,
Till, like the horror of a cloud
Wrapping the flaming sun with rose,
They hide her from the hero’s sight.
Then doth he muse thereat morose,
When in one wild cascade of light
The pageant breaks, and thunder roars:
Down flaps the loathly wing of night.
He sees the lonely Breton shores
Lapped in the levin: then his eyes
See how she shrieking soars and soars
Into the starless, stormy skies.
Well! well! this lesson will he learn,
How music’s mellowing artifice
May bid the breast of nature burn
And call the gods from star and shrine.
So now his sounding courses turn
To find an instrument divine
Whereon he may pursue his quest.
How glitter green his gleeful eyne
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