Narrative Lyrics

t precious; all the gems of the regalia; Placed it on a catafalque of sable velvet Tufted over with amazing sombre jewels; And it lay until the stroke of the next midnight, 'Mid the flickering of perfume-laden cressets, In the chilly mourning-chapel of the palace. Then the washers of the dead arrived to claim it, And disrobed it of all decking and possessions, And 't was washed and counted with unroyal corpses. And, thereafter, cunning journeymen embalmed it Till, inside its triple gilded cedarn coffins, It was laid within the rock-tombs of the rulers. In the chapel all the cressets were on fire, But the mourners all save one had long departed, For the Queen of Rhampsinitos, King of Egypt, Lay there silent, and he watched hisdead and sorrowed. He beheld the fretted crown, how it became her; How her forehead was like wax against the metal; How the glossy single braid of raven tresses Showed behind her tiny ear-shell, white and waxen; How her throat was smothered in the heaps of jewels; How the silk and fine embroidered robe was lifted By her breasts, likecarven blocks or desert boulders; How there was not any flowing in her outline, But the form was suddenly a thing eternal As the end of all her whims and veering fancies, Which had always kept him glad with new perfections. And he marked the fringe of silk and twisted bullion, And the queenly little feet that showed below it; And it startled him to see them pink no longer, But as gray as a cold sunset's final ash...