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"BEAUTY AND THE BEAST"
AN IMPRESSION
(Alhambra, January 20, 1898)
A feast of colour gay and bright, A scene of unalloyed delight, A glad escape from drabs and greys, From racking thought and toilsome days; A vision of a fairy land Where youth and beauty hand in hand Dance through radiant summer hours O'er verdant lawns bestrewn with flowers:Earth made a Paradise anew, The Golden Age again in view; All thought of life's sad discords drowned In wave on wave of pulsing sound; Beauty, enchantment, poetry, Motion harmonious, rhythmic, free; Forms graceful, sinuous, and lithe, With gladsome animation blithe; Houris for whose bewitching eyes Angels would forfeit Paradise; All that the senses can delight, All that can wing time's heavy flight; A show of loveliness supreme, A realised poetic dream;
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