purblind peer who'd in the fountain flopt—

   The jester who that fall with mirth had topt—

                       Stopt!

  And over all there came a change;

  A silence terrible and strange

                      Enwrapt the place:
  While thickets dense of thorn and brier
  Grew round it till the topmost spire

                       They did efface.

  And only agéd crones came nigh
  To gather sticks; or, passing by,

                    Some huntsman bold,
  Spying a tower, would ask its tale,

  And by the shepherds scared and pale

                      Would then be told—

  How many a prince of noble blood
  Had striven to penetrate the wood,

                    And reach the keep
  Where that Princess so passing fair,

  With King and Queen and courtiers there,

                      Lay wrapt in sleep.

  But how none ever yet could make
  A path through that thick-tangled brake—

                    And none came back,
  But perished miserably there,

  And left their bones all bleached and bare

                      In that dark track!

  It was a solemn place, I ween,

  Wrapt in its shroud of sombre green,

                       So hushed and still;
  The fall of every leaf you heard,

  Nor was there in its shades a bird

                      To cheep and trill.

  No cricket chirped beneath the hedge—

  No reed-wren rustled in the sedge—

                      No skylark soared;

  Only at times, where round the keep
  Did thickest snaky ivies creep,

                     A grey owl snored.

  The sunlight slumbered on the wall;

  The trancéd shadow did not crawl,

                       Or scarcely crept;
  Dreaming the white lake-lilies lay
  Above their image, still as they;

                     The hushed wave slept;

  Like hermits dozing in their cells,

  Drowsed in the drooping blossom-bells

                    The murmurous bees;
  All languidly the land up-clomb
  Around the central palace dome

                      By slow degrees.

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