Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 2 of 2.djvu/162

 Soft lustre bathes the range of urns On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. Here droops the banner on the tower, On the hall-hearths the festal fires, The peacock in his laurel bower, The parrot in his gilded wires.

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: In these, in those the life is stay'd. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from the wall.

Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honour blooming fair: