She opens her lids, but no longer her eyes Black and white, red and yellow, and blue. On the skull of a Titan, that Heaven defied, And anon, as he puffed the vast volumes, were seen, In horrid festoons on the wall, Legs and arms, heads and bodies, emerging between, Like the drawing-room grim of the Scotch Sawney Beane, By the Devil dressed out for a ball. "Ah me!" cried the damsel, and fell at his feet. "Must I hang on these walls to be dried?" "O, no!" said the fiend, while he sprung from his seat; "A far nobler fortune thy person shall meet; Into paint will I grind thee, my bride!" Then, seizing the maid by her dark auburn hair, Seven days, seven nights, with the shrieks of despair, All covered with oil to the chin. On the morn of the eighth on a huge, sable stone Then Ellen, all reeking, he laid; With a rock for his muller he crushed every bone, But, though ground to jelly, still, still did she groan; For life had forsook not the maid. Now, reaching his palette, with masterly care The blue of her eyes, and the brown of her hair, Then, stamping his foot, did the monster exclaim, Enthroned in the midst on an emerald bright, Her robe was a gleam of the first blush of light, In an accent that stole on the still, charmed air Thus spake from her chariot the Fairy so fair: Beware if again you deceive!" "'T is true," said the monster, "thou queen of my heart, Thy portrait I oft have essayed; Yet ne'er to the canvas could I with my art "Now I swear by the light of the Comet-King's tail," And he towered with pride as he spoke, "If again with these magical colors I fail, The crater of Etna shall hence be my jail, And my food shall be sulphur and smoke. "But if I succeed, then, O fair Geraldine! He spake; when, behold, the fair Geraldine's form His touches, they flew like the leaves in a storm; And the pure, pearly white and the carnation warm And now did the portrait a twin-sister seem With the same sweet expression did faithfully teem 'T was the Fairy herself! but, alas, her blue eyes Still a pupil did ruefully lack; And who shall describe the terrific surprise That seized the Paint-King when, behold, he descries Not a speck on his palette of black! "I am lost!" said the fiend, and he shook like a leaf; When, casting his eyes to the ground, He saw the lost pupils of Ellen, with grief, "I am lost!" said the Fiend, and he fell like a stone; Then rising the Fairy in ire With a touch of her finger she loosened her zone, (While the limbs on the wall gave a terrible groan,) And she swelled to a column of fire. Her spear now a thunderbolt flashed in the air, She smote the grim monster; and now by the hair Then over the picture thrice waving her spear, MYRTILLA. ADDRESSED TO A LADY, WHO LAMENTED THAT SHE HAD NEVER BEEN IN LOVE. "Al nuovo giorno Pietosa man mi sollevò."- METASTASIO. "Ан me! how sad," Myrtilla cried, "The world, though oft to merit blind, For they have oft the knee inclined, And poured the sigh, but, like the wind "Ah no! neglect I cannot rue." Then o'er the limpid stream She cast her eyes of ether blue; |