Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses,

And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.

183 It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded

Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,

Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded,

Circling all nature, hush 'd, and dim, and still,

With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded

On one side, and the deep sea calm and
chill,

Upon the other, and the rosy sky,
With one star sparkling through it like
an eye.

184 And thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand,

Over the shining pebbles and the shells, Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand,

And in the worn and wild receptacles Work'd by the storms, yet work'd as it were plann'd,

In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,

They turn'd to rest; and, each clasp'd by

187

188

199

Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real

Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel.

To make us understand each good old maxim,

So good-I wonder Castlereagh don't tax 'em.

But to my subject-let me see-what was it?

Oh! the third canto-and the pretty pair

Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode

Of living in their insular abode.

82 Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less In company a very pleasant fellow, Had been the favorite of full many a mess Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;

And though his meaning they could rarely guess,

Yet still they deign'd to hiccup or to
bellow

The glorious meed of popular applause,
Of which the first ne'er knows the second

cause.

83 But now being lifted into high society, And having pick'd up several odds and

ends

Of free thoughts in his travels, for variety, He deem'd, being in a lone isle, among friends,

That without any danger of a riot, he

Might for long lying make himself
amends;

And singing as he sung in his warm youth,
Agree to a short armistice with truth.

84 He had travell'd 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,

And knew the self-loves of the different nations;

1 irritable soothsayer (Chapter 2 of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is on "The Supposed Irritability of Men of Genius.")

2 One who does not adhere to one set of opinions in politics.