SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued .away;
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day;
Blissfully havened both from joy and pain; 240
Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.
XXVIII
Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress, 245
And listened to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless,
And breathed himself: then from the closet crept.
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness, 250
And over the hushed carpets silent, stept,
And 'tween the curtains peeped, where, lo!—how fast
she slept!
XXIX
Then by the bed-side,' where the faded moon
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half anguished, threw thereon 255
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:—
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet,
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone :— 260
The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise is gone.
XXX
And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep
In blanched linen, smooth, and lavendered,
159