Explore "The Long Room" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ He found the long room as it was of old, / Glimmering with sunset's gold; / That made the tapestries seem full of eyes / Strange with a wild surmise: / Glaring upon a Psyche where she shone / Carven of stainless stone, / Holding a crystal heart where many a sun / Seemed starrily bound in one: / And near her, grim in rigid metal, stood / An old knight in a wood, / Groping his way: the bony wreck, that was / His steed, at weary pause. / And over these a canvas -- one mad mesh / Of Chrysoprase tints of flesh / And breasts -- Bohemian cups, whose glory gleamed / For one who, brutish, seemed / A hideous Troll, unto whose lustful arms / She yielded glad her charms.
/ Then he remembered all _her_ shame; and knew / The thing that he must do: / These were but records of _his_ life: the whole / Portrayed to him his soul. -- / So, drawing forth the slim Bithynian phial, / He drained it with a smile. / And 'twixt the Knight and Psyche fell and died; / The arras, evil-eyed, / Glared grimly at him where all night he lay, / And where a stealthy ray / Pointed her to _him_ -- her, that nymph above, / Who gave the Troll her love.