In rustling leaves, for all her draperyWas green and gold, and lovely as could be.
Midway in hall the fountain rose and fell, Filling a listless Naiad's outstretched shell And weaving rainbows in the shifting light. Upon the carven friezes, left and right, Was pictured Pan asleep beside his reed. In this place all things seemed asleep, indeed— The hook-billed parrot on his pendent ring, Sitting high-shouldered, half forgot to swing; The wind scarce stirred the hangings at the door, And from the silken arras evermore Yawned drowsy dwarfs with satyr's face and hoof.
A forest of gold pillars propped the roof, And like one slim gold pillar overthrown, The sunlight through a great stained window shone And lay across the body of Alain. You would have thought, perchance, the man was slain: As if the checkered column in its fall Had caught and crushed him, he lay dead to all. The parrot's gray bead eye as good as said, Unclosing viciously, "The clown is dead." A dragon-fly in narrowing circles neared, And lit, secure, upon the dead man's beard, Then spread its iris vans in quick dismay, And into the blue summer sped away!