And then the dazzling lustre of the hall in which they muster—­
Where the brightest diamonds cluster on the flashing walls around;
And the flying and advancing, and the sighing and the glancing. 
And the music and the dancing on the flower-inwoven ground,
And the laughing and the feasting, and the quaffing and the sound,
        In which their voices all are drowned.

But the murmur now is hushing—­there’s a pushing and a rushing,
There’s a crowding and a crushing, through that golden, fairy place,
Where a snowy veil is lifting, like the slow and silent shifting
Of a shining vapour drifting across the moon’s pale face—­
For there sits gentle Una, fairest queen of fairy race,
        In her beauty, and her majesty, and grace.

The moon by stars attended, on her pearly throne ascended,
Is not more purely splendid than this fairy-girted queen;
And when her lips had spoken, ’mid the charmed silence broken,
You’d think you had awoken in some bright Elysian scene;
For her voice than the lark’s was sweeter, that sings in joy between
        The heavens and the meadows green.

But her cheeks—­ah! what are roses?—­what are clouds where eve
  reposes?—­
What are hues that dawn discloses?—­to the blushes spreading there;
And what the sparkling motion of a star within the ocean,
To the crystal soft emotion that her lustrous dark eyes wear? 
And the tresses of a moonless and a starless night are fair
        To the blackness of her raven hair.

Ah! mortal hearts have panted for what to thee is granted—­
To see the halls enchanted of the spirit world revealed;
And yet no glimpse assuages the feverish doubt that rages
In the hearts of bards and sages wherewith they may be healed;
For this have pilgrims wandered—­for this have votaries kneeled—­
        For this, too, has blood bedewed the field.

“And now that thou beholdest what the wisest and the oldest,
What the bravest and the boldest, have never yet descried,
Wilt thou come and share our being, be a part of what thou’rt seeing,
And flee, as we are fleeing, through the boundless ether wide? 
Or along the silver ocean, or down deep where pale pearls hide? 
        And I, who am a queen, will be thy bride.

“As an essence thou wilt enter the world’s mysterious centre,”
And then the fairy bent her, imploring to the youth—­
“Thou’lt be free of Death’s cold ghastness, and, with a comet’s
  fastness,
Thou canst wander through the vastness to the Paradise of Truth,
Each day a new joy bringing, which will never leave in sooth
        The slightest stain of weariness and ruth.”

As he listened to the speaker, his heart grew weak and weaker—­
Ah!  Memory, go seek her, that maiden by the wave,
Who with terror and amazement is looking from her casement,
Where the billows at the basement of her nestled cottage rave,
At the moon which struggles onward through the tempest, like the brave,
        And which sinks within the clouds as in a grave.