There are two guests at table now; The king, deposed and older grown, No longer occupies the throne,-- The crown is on his sister's brow; A Princess from the Fairy Isles, The very pattern girl of girls, All cover'd and embower'd in curls, Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers, And sailing with soft, silken sails From far-off Dreamland into ours. Above their bowls with rims of blue Four azure eyes of deeper hue Are looking, dreamy with delight; Limpid as planets that emerge Above the ocean's rounded verge, Soft-shining through the summer night. Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see Beyond the horizon of their bowls; Nor care they for the world that rolls With all its freight of troubled souls Into the days that are to be. V. Again the tossing boughs shut out the scene, Again the drifting vapors intervene, And the moon's pallid disk is hidden quite: And now I see the table wider grown, As round a pebble into water thrown Dilates a ring of light. I see the table wider grown, I see it garlanded with guests, As if fair Ariadne's Crown Out of the sky had fallen down; Maidens within whose tender breasts A thousand restless hopes and fears, Forth reaching to the coming years, Flutter awhile, then quiet lie, Like timid birds that fain would fly, But do not dare to leave their nests;-- And youths, who in their strength elate Challenge the van and front of fate, Eager as champions to be In the divine knight-errantry Of youth, that travels sea and land Seeking adventures, or pursues, Through cities, and through solitudes Frequented by the lyric Muse, The phantom with the beckoning hand, That still allures and still eludes. O sweet illusions of the brain! O sudden thrills of fire and frost! The world is bright while ye remain, And dark and dead when ye are lost! VI. The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand still, Quickens its current as it nears the mill; And so the stream of Time that lingereth In level places, and so dull appears, Runs with a swifter current as it nears The gloomy mills of Death.