X.
But, the news came once again, too soon,
"It is done! A dress just like the moon!"
Lura cried, "But two weeks hath not gone -
'Tis not possible that it were done!
Surely, somehow I have been deceived:
Such a thing is not to be believed."
But alas! The tidings were correct:
The second dress was ready to inspect.
Such a gown! So delicate and rare,
Made from lengths of satin, light as air,
Midnight-blue, ornately overlaid
With a filigree of silver braid.
Pearls and opals dripped from every fold
E'en more richly than the dress of gold,
And a gorgeous cape of lustrous gleam
Flowed and shimmered, in a silver stream.
'Twas so like a wintry moon at night
That the chamber seemed all bathed with light.
The King appeared again, once more to ask
If his workers had performed their task.
"Is it not as thou didst specify?
Like the moon upon a winter's sky?"
"Yes," the tearful maid replied, "'tis so.
Would that it were rent to pieces, though."
To her bower Lura took the dress,
There, its volumes she did well compress
So within a walnut husk it might
Be concealed, safely out of sight.
In her silver box the second nut
Joined the first. Then all was fastened shut.
To herself the girl said, "I wouldst fain
Never see those articles again."