With gracious tenderness, he felt himself Strong suddenly to bear the blinding light Of those great eyes. "Dear knight," she murmured low, "For love of me, wilt thou accord this boon,-- To grace my weary home in banishment?" His hungry eyes gave answer ere he spoke, In tones abrupt that startled his own ears With their strange harshness; but with thanks profuse She guided him, still holding his cold hand In her warm, dainty palm, unto a cave, Whence a rare glory issued, and a smell Of spice and roses, frankincense and balm. They entering stood within a marble hall, With straight, slim pillars, at whose farther end The goddess led him to a spiral flight Of stairs, descending always 'midst black gloom Into the very bowels of the earth. Down these, with fearful swiftness, they made way, The knight's feet touching not the solid stair, But sliding down as in a vexing dream, Blind, feeling but that hand divine that still Empowered him to walk on empty air. Then he was dazzled by a sudden blaze, In vast palace filled with reveling folk. Cunningly pictured on the ivory walls Were rolling hills, cool lakes, and boscage green, And all the summer landscape's various pomp. The precious canopy aloft was carved In semblance of the pleached forest trees, Enameled with the liveliest green, wherethrough A light pierced, more resplendent than the day. O'er the pale, polished jasper of the floor Of burnished metal, fretted and embossed With all the marvelous story of her birth Painted in prodigal splendor of rich tincts, And carved by heavenly artists,--crystal seas, And long-haired Nereids in their pearly shells, And all the wonder of her lucent limbs Sphered in a vermeil mist. Upon the throne She took her seat, the knight beside her still, Singing on couches of fresh asphodel, And the dance ceased, and the flushed revelers came In glittering phalanx to adore their queen. Beautiful girls, with shining delicate heads, Crested with living jewels, fanned the air With flickering wings from naked shoulders soft. Then with preluding low, a thousand harps, And citherns, and strange nameless instruments, Sent through the fragrant air sweet symphonies, And the winged dancers waved in mazy rounds, With changing lustres like a summer sea. Fair boys, with charming yellow hair crisp-curled, And frail, effeminate beauty, the knight saw, But of strong, stalwart men like him were none. He gazed thereon bewitched, until the hand Of Venus, erst withdrawn, now fell again Upon his own, and roused him from his trance. He looked on her, and as he looked, a cloud Auroral, flaming as at sunrising, Arose from nothing, floating over them In luminous folds, like that vermilion mist