IV.

Soon as the Morn from curtain-folds of grey
Peeped out with smile so grave and tender.
Like a young Queen upon her crowning-day
Blushing to put on all that gold and splendour—
Up rose the lovers to survey
The marvels yet unseen that round them lay.
page 276 Baths beauteous, statelier than of old
Rome's silken Emperors ever planned,
Of every nice degree of heat and cold,
Are ready crystal-filled at hand:
No need have they of fuel or fire
To cook their morning meal to their desire;
"Tis but to scrape a primrose-tinted seam,
Some sulphur-crusted fissure dry
That runs through fern and grass hard by—
Up comes the hot and fizzing steam,
Wherein—or plunged in water boiling blue
The food suspended, is, without ado,
In style as wholesome quickly drest
As Savarin's choicest, Soyer's best.