Page:The Improvisatrice.pdf/167



AN INDIAN TALE.

["" was taken from some faint recollection of a tale I had either read or heard; and meeting with the word "Bayadere" many years after recalled it to my memory as a subject exquisitely poetical. I have been since told it was a poem of Goëthe's. This poem has never been to my knowledge translated; and, being ignorant of the German language, I am unable to say whether the tale conforms to the original or not.]

were seventy pillars around the hall, Of wreathed gold was each capital, And the roof was fretted with amber and gems, Such as light kingly diadems; The floor was marble, white as the snow Ere its pureness is stained by its fall below: