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The chaplet of bronze.
A note shot upward, and suspended hung
As if on poised wings. A single voice
Cried "Bravo!" as slow dropped from that great height
It seemed to fathom silence. Then upborne
By music, like a bird that's swung to rest
By the lulled waves, the singer's voice kept on
Swelling and falling with the sound that bare it.
Low bent the lover to his lady's ear,
And she sat trifling with her gilded fan.
All through the indifferent crowd, above, below,
Only averted faces met her eye
"Who had been wont to hold the multitude
By her sweet voice as in a silver leash.
With scarce a bend of her white neck she turned
And passed out from their sight.
The painted curtain
Swept to the footlamps, and the orchestra
Thundered again. But to and fro the crowd
Swayed with mute restlessness. Some one cried out
"Amalia!" and a thousand voices joined,
"Amalia!" to the gilded ceiling, slow,
Crept back the screen of drapery.
As if on poised wings. A single voice
Cried "Bravo!" as slow dropped from that great height
It seemed to fathom silence. Then upborne
By music, like a bird that's swung to rest
By the lulled waves, the singer's voice kept on
Swelling and falling with the sound that bare it.
Low bent the lover to his lady's ear,
And she sat trifling with her gilded fan.
All through the indifferent crowd, above, below,
Only averted faces met her eye
"Who had been wont to hold the multitude
By her sweet voice as in a silver leash.
With scarce a bend of her white neck she turned
And passed out from their sight.
The painted curtain
Swept to the footlamps, and the orchestra
Thundered again. But to and fro the crowd
Swayed with mute restlessness. Some one cried out
"Amalia!" and a thousand voices joined,
"Amalia!" to the gilded ceiling, slow,
Crept back the screen of drapery.
