More than I liked did my fear rise. Stock still I stood and dared not call;
With lips close shut and eyes,
I stood as quiet as in hall.
I thought her a spirit from the skies;
I doubted what thing might befall;
If to escape me now she tries,
How shall my voice her flight ?
Then graciously and gay withal,
In royal robes, so sweet, so slight,
She rose, so modest and so small,
That precious one in pearls bedight.
Pearl bedight full royally,
Adown the bank with merry ,
Came the , fresh as fleur-de-lys.
Her surcoat must have been
Shining in whitest purity,
at the sides and caught between
With the fairest pearls, it seemed to me,
That ever yet mine eyes had seen;
With large folds falling loose, I ween,
Arrayed with double pearls, her white
Kirtle, of the same linen sheen,
With precious pearls all round was dight.
A crown with pearls bedight, the girl
Was wearing, and no other stone;
High of clear white pearl,
as if pearls to flowers were grown.
No band nor fillet else did furl
The long locks all about her thrown.
Her air as duke or earl,
Her more white than walrus-bone;
Like sheer gold thread the bright hair strown
Loose on her shoulders, lying light.
Her colour took a deeper tone
With bordering pearls so fair bedight.
Bedight was every , and bound,
At wrists, sides, and each ,
With pearls the whitest ever found,—
White all her brave investiture;
But a pearl, a flawless round,
Upon her breast was set full sure;
A man's mind it might well ,
And all his wits to madness .
I thought that no tongue might endure
to tell of that sweet sight,
So was it perfect, clear and pure,
That precious pearl with pearls bedight.
Bedight in pearls, lest my joy cease,
That lovely one came down the shore;
The gladdest man from here to Greece,
The eagerest, was I, therefore;
She was nearer than aunt or niece,
And thus my joy was much the more.
She to me for my soul's peace,
Courtesied with her woman's ,
Caught off the shining crown she wore,
And greeted me with glance alight.
I blessed my birth; my brimmed o'er
To answer her in pearls bedight.