| |
| “Nunc plaudite!” the Student cried, | |
| When he had finished; “now applaud, | |
| As Roman actors used to say | |
| At the conclusion of a play;” | |
| And rose, and spread his hands abroad, | 5 |
| And smiling bowed from side to side, | |
| As one who bears the palm away. | |
| |
| And generous was the applause and loud, | |
| But less for him than for the sun, | |
| That even as the tale was done | 10 |
| Burst from its canopy of cloud, | |
| And lit the landscape with the blaze | |
| Of afternoon on autumn days, | |
| And filled the room with light, and made | |
| The fire of logs a painted shade. | 15 |
| |
| A sudden wind from out the west | |
| Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill; | |
| The windows rattled with the blast, | |
| The oak-trees shouted as it passed, | |
| And straight, as if by fear possessed, | 20 |
| The cloud encampment on the hill | |
| Broke up, and fluttering flag and tent | |
| Vanished into the firmament, | |
| And down the valley fled amain | |
| The rear of the retreating rain. | 25 |
| |
| Only far up in the blue sky | |
| A mass of clouds, like drifted snow | |
| Suffused with a faint Alpine glow, | |
| Was heaped together, vast and high, | |
| On which a shattered rainbow hung, | 30 |
| Not rising like the ruined arch | |
| Of some aerial aqueduct, | |
| But like a roseate garland plucked | |
| From an Olympian god, and flung | |
| Aside in his triumphal march. | 35 |
| |
| Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom, | |
| Like birds escaping from a snare, | |
| Like school-boys at the hour of play, | |
| All left at once the pent-up room, | |
| And rushed into the open air; | 40 |
| And no more tales were told that day. | |
| |
