A fourth as marble, statue-like and still, Lay in a breathless, hush’d, and stony sleep; White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill, Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep, Or Lot’s wife done in salt,—or what you will;— My similes are gather’d in a heap, So pick and choose—perhaps you’ll be content With a carved lady on a monument. And lo! a fifth appears;—and what is she? A lady of a ‘certain age,’ which means Certainly aged—what her years might be I know not, never counting past their teens; But there she slept, not quite so fair to see, As ere that awful period intervenes Which lays both men and women on the shelf, To meditate upon their sins and self. But all this time how slept, or dream’d, Dudu? With strict inquiry I could ne’er discover, And scorn to add a syllable untrue; But ere the middle watch was hardly over, Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue, And phantoms hover’d, or might seem to hover, To those who like their company, about The apartment, on a sudden she scream’d out: And that so loudly, that upstarted all The Oda, in a general commotion: Matron and maids, and those whom you may call Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean, One on the other, throughout the whole hall, All trembling, wondering, without the least notion More than I have myself of what could make The calm Dudu so turbulently wake. But wide awake she was, and round her bed, With floating draperies and with flying hair, With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread, And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare, And bright as any meteor ever bred By the North Pole,—they sought her cause of care, For she seem’d agitated, flush’d, and frighten’d, Her eye dilated and her colour heighten’d. But what was strange—and a strong proof how great A blessing is sound sleep—Juanna lay As fast as ever husband by his mate In holy matrimony snores away. Not all the clamour broke her happy state Of slumber, ere they shook her,—so they say At least,—and then she, too, unclosed her eyes, And yawn’d a good deal with discreet surprise. And now commenced a strict investigation, Which, as all spoke at once and more than once, Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration, Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce To answer in a very clear oration. Dudu had never pass’d for wanting sense, But, being ‘no orator as Brutus is,’ Could not at first expound what was amiss. At length she said, that in a slumber sound She dream’d a dream, of walking in a wood— A ‘wood obscure,’ like that where Dante found Himself in at the age when all grow good; Life’s half-way house, where dames with virtue crown’d Run much less risk of lovers turning rude; And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits, And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;