To A. W. von Schlegel

In dainty hoop, with flowers all-richly dight,
With beauty-patches on her painted face,
With pointed shoes all hung about with lace,
With tow’ring curls, and, wasp-like, fasten’d tight,--
Thus was the spurious muse equipp’d that night
When first she offer’d thee her fond embrace;
But thou eludedst her and leftst the place,
Led by a mystic impulse from her sight:
A castle in the desert thou didst find,
Where, like a lovely marble image shrin’d,
Lay a fair maid, in magic slumber sunk;
But soon the spell was loosed,--when kiss’d by thee,
With smiles the lawful muse of Germany
Awoke, and sank within thine arms, love-drunk.