Fragment of “The Castle Builder”

To-night I’ll have my friar⁠—let me think
About my room⁠—I’ll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June
Should look thro’ four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower’d with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady’s glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish’d but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink’d purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower;⁠—just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon,⁠—the lights bring in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as though they had
Been made for Cleopatra’s winding-sheet;
And opposite the steadfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old “Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.”
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far,
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore ’tis sure a want of Attic taste
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter’s clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlits of Jason’s fleece
And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,
Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.
My ebon sofas should delicious be
With down from Leda’s cygnet progeny.
My pictures all Salvator’s, save a few
Of Titian’s portraiture, and one, though new,
Of Haydon’s in its fresh magnificence.
My wine⁠—O good! ’tis here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.