In glowing sparks wide over all the land.
The surging sea dashed its bewildered waves
Against the foreheads of gigantic bergs,
Walking, like drunken men, the noisy deep.
Anon the POLE was calm. Uninjured stood
The mortal maid before the great OENE;
While near, a thousand prostrate subjects lay
Slain by an angry sovereign disobeyed.

"Queen of this strange and spectral land, wilt thou
Not show thy favor to a lonesome child
Come wandering all this way, impelled by love?
Not hate, ambition, curiosity,
Have led me to thy fair and fearful presence.
I have no power, am but a weak young girl;
And chance, alone, has thus revealed to me
The mystic glory of this unknown world,
With thy bright self and this enchanted isle,--
This pearl upon the bosom of the deep
So palely, purely fair--undreamed of beauty!
Love is the sole excuse which I can urge
For my intrusion"--here the stranger blushed,
Drooping in silence her embarrassed head.

"Speak on!" imperially the Pole-Queen said,
Charmed in her own despite, by that sweet face;
While LIR-LIR to KOLONA leaned and smiled,
Commending, in a whisper, what she saw:
And a soft flutter through the courtly train
Stirred, like the shimmer of a moonlit breeze