KING.  Well then, dost gaze?  Does then Squire Gander gawk
             Till Lady Goose-quill gawks again?  Is’t so? 
             And next, I ween, thou takest up thy lute,
             And turning towards the balcony, as here,
             Thou singst a croaking song, to which the moon,
             A yellow pander, sparkles through the trees;
             The flowers sweet intoxicate the sense,
             Till now the proper opportunity
             Arrives—­the father, brother—­spouse, perhaps—­
             Has left the house on similar errand bent. 
             And now the handmaid calls you gently:  “Pst!”
             You enter in, and then a soft, warm hand
             Takes hold of yours and leads you through the halls,
             Which, endless as the gloomy grave, spur on
             The heightened wish, until, at last, the musk,
             The softened lights that come through curtains’ folds,
             Do tell you that your charming goal is reached. 
             The door is ope’d, and bright, in candle gleam,
             On velvet dark, with limbs all loosed in love,
             Her snow-white arm enwrapped in ropes of pearls,
             Your darling leans with gently drooping head,
             The golden locks—­no, no, I say they’re black—­
             Her raven locks—­and so on to the end! 
             Thou seest, Garceran, I learn right well,
             And Christian, Mooress, Jewess, ’tis the same.

GARCERAN.  We frontier warriors prize, for lack of choice,
             Fair Moorish women, but the Jewess, Sire,—­

KING.  Pretend thou not to pick and choose thy fare! 
             I wager, if the maiden there above
             Had given thee but a glance, thou’dst be aflame. 
             I love it not, this folk, and yet I know
             That what disfigures it, is our own work;
             We lame them, and are angry when they limp,
             And yet, withal, this wandering shepherd race
             Has something great about it, Garceran. 
             We are today’s, we others; but their line
             Runs from Creation’s cradle, where our God,
             In human form, still walked in Paradise,
             And cherubim were guests of patriarchs,
             And God alone was judge, and was the law. 
             Within this fairy world there is the truth
             Of Cain and Abel, of Rebecca’s craft,
             Of Rachel, who by Jacob’s service wooed—­
             How hight this maiden?

GARCERAN.  Sire, I know not. 
KING.  Oh! 
             Of great King Ahasuerus, who his hand
             Stretched out o’er Esther; she, though Jewess, was
             His wife, and, like a god, preserved her race.