Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/170



Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich The fretted splendor of each nook and niche. Between the tree-stems marbled plain at first, Came jasper panels; then, anon, there burst Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees, And with the larger wove in small intricacies. Approving all, she faded at self-will, And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still, Complete and ready for the revels rude, When dreadful guests would come to spoil her solitude.
 * The day appear'd, and all the gossip rout.

O senseless Lycius. Madman! wherefore flout The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours. And show to common eyes these secret bowers? The herd approached, each guest, with busy brain, Arriving at the portal, gazed amain, And enter'd marvelling: for they knew the street, Remember'd it from childhood all complete Without a gap, yet ne'er before had seen That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne; So in they hurried all, mazed, curious and keen: Save one, who look'd thereon with eye severe, And with calm-planted steps walk'd in austere; 'Twas Apollonius: something too he laugh'd, As though some knotty problem, that had daft His patient thought, had now begun to thaw, And solve and melt:—'twas just as he foresaw.


 * He met within the murmurous vestibule

His young disciple. Tis no common rule,