with willful toil. 
    KOLONA’s limbs and bosom roseate glowed
    As the slant moonlight through the crimson flower
    Bathed her with blushes; but, when on the strand
    She lightly sprang, flinging her tresses back,
    A southern maiden would have deemed her pale. 
    Too rich for pallor was the polished glow
    Of her lithe figure; while, in either cheek,
    The red veins glimmered; dark blue were her eyes;
    Her tresses, like deep shadows, made more fair
    The light which they enhanced, glancing within.

    The first to touch the white feet of the Queen
    And place herself at her right hand, was she. 
    Others came soon; all bright, all beautiful,
    With deep blue eyes, and sweet mouths set in smiles. 
    Long chains of jewels rare were, round their necks,
    Twined many times; these, flickering, rose and fell
    With the soft breath their full, graced bosoms drew. 
    From waist to knee of each a tunic dropped
    In many folds, woven in changing hues
    Of birds’ gay plumage, and fringed deep with gems,
    Which they with artless and unenvying pride,
    Would fain have made, each, most magnificent.

    They gathered round their Queen, as midnight neared. 
    Suddenly, with the hour, there came a change
    Over the moonlight and the courtly scene. 
    OENE upon the pavement pressed her feet,
    And out the North-Lights sprang, to do her will,
    From secret caverns underneath its pearls. 
    O’er all the land she bade them come and go;
    Each battlemented iceberg on the deep
    Of other seas, and every snowy hall,
    And every citadel by frosts upreared,
    Were lighted with wild splendors, as the troupes
    Of messengers rushed swiftly to and fro. 
    The people of the Arctics knew their Queen
    Summoned her subjects to the Presence then
    By wavering tints which played beneath the Star,
    And the great speed with which the North-Lights flew. 
    They hurried even to the Temperate Zone. 
    A band of phantom spirits took wings and flew
    Far to the southern sky, a fluttering crowd. 
    A warrior, yellow garbed, with fiery spear,
    Bestrode a frantic steed, and looked not back
    Till he alighted on a distant hill. 
    With scintillant flames some perched on towers remote
    Or bore green banners o’er the mirroring sea,
    Or flitted through dim valleys, bright and fast,
    Casting their flickering shadows down the deep
    And awful solitudes of Arctic lands.

    Such of her people as had aught to ask
    Of favor or redress, from air and earth,
    Came now, bringing petitions, councils, gifts. 
    Some slid on twinkling star-beams through the air,
    Some sailed in shallops over the light waves,
    And all who came had presents for their Queen,—­