And giving up all notions of resistance, They follow’d close behind their sable guide, Who little thought that his own crack’d existence Was on the point of being set aside: He motion’d them to stop at some small distance, And knocking at the gate, ’twas open’d wide, And a magnificent large hall display’d The Asian pomp of Ottoman parade. I won’t describe; description is my forte, But every fool describes in these bright days His wondrous journey to some foreign court, And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise— Death to his publisher, to him ’tis sport; While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways, Resigns herself with exemplary patience To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations. Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted Upon their hams, were occupied at chess; Others in monosyllable talk chatted, And some seem’d much in love with their own dress. And divers smoked superb pipes decorated With amber mouths of greater price or less; And several strutted, others slept, and some Prepared for supper with a glass of rum. As the black eunuch enter’d with his brace Of purchased Infidels, some raised their eyes A moment without slackening from their pace; But those who sate ne’er stirr’d in anywise: One or two stared the captives in the face, Just as one views a horse to guess his price; Some nodded to the negro from their station, But no one troubled him with conversation. He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping, On through a farther range of goodly rooms, Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping, A marble fountain echoes through the glooms Of night which robe the chamber, or where popping Some female head most curiously presumes To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice, As wondering what the devil a noise that is. Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls Gave light enough to hint their farther way, But not enough to show the imperial halls, In all the flashing of their full array; Perhaps there’s nothing—I’ll not say appals, But saddens more by night as well as day, Than an enormous room without a soul To break the lifeless splendour of the whole. Two or three seem so little, one seems nothing: In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore, There solitude, we know, has her full growth in The spots which were her realms for evermore; But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in More modern buildings and those built of yore, A kind of death comes o’er us all alone, Seeing what ’s meant for many with but one. A neat, snug study on a winter’s night, A book, friend, single lady, or a glass Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite, Are things which make an English evening pass; Though certes by no means so grand a sight As is a theatre lit up by gas. I pass my evenings in long galleries solely, And that ’s the reason I’m so melancholy.