Yes, she was lost, for the resplendent Chaoukeun was shut up to waste away her peerless beauty in sorrow and in solitude.  One small terrace-walk was the only spot permitted her on which to enjoy the breezes of heaven.  Night was looking down in loveliness, with her countless eyes, upon the injustice and cruelty of men, when the magnificent Youantee, who had little imagined that the brother of the sun and moon would be doomed to swallow the bitter pillau of disappointment, as had been latterly his custom, quitted the palace to walk in the gardens and commune with his own thoughts, unattended.  And it pleased destiny, that the pearl beyond price, the neglected Chaoukeun also was induced, by the beauty and stillness of the night, to press the shell sand which covered the terrace-walk, with her diminutive feet, so diminutive, that she almost tottered in her gait.  The tear trembled in her eye as she thought of her own happy home, and bitterly did she bewail that beauty, which, instead of raising her to a throne, had by malice and avarice condemned her to perpetual solitude.  She looked upwards at the starry heaven, but felt no communion with its loveliness.  She surveyed the garden of sweets from the terrace, but all appeared to be desolate.  Of late, her only companions had been her tears and her lute, whose notes were as plaintive as her own.

“O my mother!” exclaimed she; “beloved, but too ambitious mother! but for one little hour to lay this head upon your bosom!  Fatal hath been the dream you rejoiced in at my nativity, in which the moon shone out so brilliantly, and then descended into the earth at your feet.  I have shone but a little, little time, and now am I buried, as it were, in the earth, at my joyous age.  Immured in this solitary tower, my hopes destroyed—­my portrait cannot have been seen—­and now I am lost for ever.  Thou lute, sole companion of my woes, let us join our voices of complaint.  Let us fancy that the flowers are listening to our grief, and that the dews upon the half-closed petals are tears of pity for my misfortunes.”  And Chaoukeun struck her lute, and thus poured out her lament: 

  “O tell me, thou all-glorious sun,
    Were there no earth to drink thy light,
  Would not, in vain, thy course be run,
    Thy reign be o’er a realm of night?

  “Thus charms were born to be enthroned
    In hearts, and youth to be caress’d;
  And beauty is not, if not own’d,
    At least by one adoring breast.”

Ti-tum, tilly-lilly, ti-tum, ti.

The musical notes of the peerless Chaoukeun were not thrown away only upon flowers deaf and dumb, they vibrated in the ears of the magnificent Youantee, who had sat down on the back of an enormous metal dragon, which had been placed in the walk under the terrace.  The emperor listened with surprise at her soliloquy, with admiration at her enchanting song.  For some minutes he remained in a profound reverie, and then rising from the dragon, he walked towards the gate of the tower, and clapped his hands.  The eunuch made his appearance.  “Keeper of the Yellow Tower,” said the emperor, “but now I heard the sounds of a lute.”