Within-- Where the moon glittered through the laceworked stone, Lighting the walls of pearl-shell and the floors Paved with veined marble--softly fell her beams On such rare company of Indian girls, It seemed some chamber sweet in Paradise Where Devis rested. All the chosen ones Of Prince Siddartha's pleasure-home were there, The brightest and most faithful of the Court, Each form so lovely in the peace of sleep, That you had said "This is the pearl of all!" Save that beside her or beyond her lay Fairer and fairer, till the pleasured gaze Roamed o'er that feast of beauty as it roams From gem to gem in some great goldsmith-work, Caught by each colour till the next is seen. With careless grace they lay, their soft brown limbs Part hidden, part revealed; their glossy hair Bound back with gold or flowers, or flowing loose In black waves down the shapely nape and neck. Lulled into pleasant dreams by happy toils, They slept, no wearier than jewelled birds Which sing and love all day, then under wing Fold head till morn bids sing and love again. Lamps of chased silver swinging from the roof In silver chains, and fed with perfumed oils, Made with the moonbeams tender lights and shades, Whereby were seen the perfect lines of grace, The bosom's placid heave, the soft stained palms Drooping or clasped, the faces fair and dark, The great arched brows, the parted lips, the teeth Like pearls a merchant picks to make a string, The satin-lidded eyes, with lashes dropped Sweeping the delicate cheeks, the rounded wrists The smooth small feet with bells and bangles decked, Tinkling low music where some sleeper moved, Breaking her smiling dream of some new dance Praised by the Prince, some magic ring to find, Some fairy love-gift. Here one lay full-length, Her vina by her cheek, and in its strings The little fingers still all interlaced As when the last notes of her light song played Those radiant eyes to sleep and sealed her own. Another slumbered folding in her arms A desert-antelope, its slender head Buried with back-sloped horns between her breasts Soft nestling; it was eating--when both drowsed-- Red roses, and her loosening hand still held A rose half-mumbled, while a rose-leaf curled Between the deer's lips. Here two friends had dozed Together, wearing mogra-buds, which bound Their sister-sweetness in a starry chain, Linking them limb to limb and heart to heart, One pillowed on the blossoms, one on her. Another, ere she slept, was stringing stones To make a necklet--agate, onyx, sard, Coral, and moonstone--round her wrist it gleamed A coil of splendid colour, while she held, Unthreaded yet, the bead to close it up