She stops by the gate blind-walled; _Mary_! What called? Did something die? What answered back? Did the queen shriek behind her veil of black? Something said, "O," "O," "O" With the voice of the queen's own woe! Was it demon or echo? It had an "O"-shaped mouth And a voice like the wind in the south. It mocked her like a child, Each time less loud And much more mild. [Sidenote: The unchanging attitude of nature makes the king fall in love with the earth.] The king, I guess, has lost his wits; It must be so! All day he sits Where mast-straight poplars grow, Four here, four there, foursquare, Like columns in a row, Still as the shadow on a mountain, And in the middle is a fountain, Held by two marble boys, Whence the water falls with a sleepy noise. It is a madman's choice To listen to that fountain's voice. It must be so! [Sidenote: In his garden he finds a peace like death in life.] For never comes to that enchanted place A sound but of the water, sea, and bells; The shadows lie like tattered lace. One mood is fixed there and forever, Like a look on a dead man's face, Like a week of summer weather, I would that I might lay my head on such a bed, Where dreams make spells-- So must the king think when he hears the bells. II. [Sidenote: In his youth the king heard a hermit's bell and in the ineffable peace of its sound realized the deepest longing of his heart.] Once in his youth, While his new ears could yet distinguish truth, He heard a listless bell clang langorously, A liquid, languid clamor, The talking tone of iron struck by the hammer, A sound that blew like smoke across the sea, Low, slow and trembling dreamfully From the high, horn-shaped cape; For there a hermit lived And tended the wild grape, Where white, campaniform, small lilies teem, And there he died beside his cell, Lost in his dream of heaven and of hell; And the bell was the voice of that old dream. One Lusitanian summer, long ago, Upon a hot and azure afternoon, While the oars trailed And with the tide they sailed, And tenor zithers an ivory tune-- Along cerulean coasts, With islands like blue ghosts, Rang the lone hermit's bell, "_Alone-lin-lang-alone_," Clear as a wounded angel's voice, Soft as a death spell that old women croon-- The harbor gulf lay placid, And in the west there hung a half a moon. [Sidenote: Through all his life the bell never ceases to lure him. Weak from wounds, he sees a vision of the peace of death in life in the hermit's garden on the cape.]