Yet soft,--nay stay--what vision have we here?
What dainty darling this--what peerless peer?
What loveliest face, that loving ranks enfold.
Like brightest diamond chased in purest gold?
Dazzled and blind, mine office I forsake,
My club, my Key, my knee, my homage take.
Bright paragon, pass on in joy and bliss;--
Beshrew the gate that opes not wide at such a sight as this!
Elizabeth received most graciously the homage of the herculean porter
and then passed through the guarded tower amidst the sounds of trumpets
and other instruments stationed on the tower and in various parts of the
castle, and dismounted near Mortimer's Tower, which was as light as day
as she walked across the long bridge built especially for her and lit
with torches on either side. She had no sooner stepped upon the bridge
than a new spectacle was provided, for as soon as the music gave signal
that she was so far advanced, a raft on the lake, disposed as to
resemble a small floating island, illuminated by a great variety of
torches, and surrounded by floating pageants formed to represent
sea-horses, on which sat Tritons, Nereids, and other fabulous deities of
the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the lake, and, issuing
from behind a small heronry where it had been concealed, floated gently
towards the farther end of the bridge.
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