But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal?

Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,

Thy messenger, hath known,

Have dream'd for thy Infinity

A model of their own

Thy will is done, oh, God!

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye;

And here, in thought, to thee —

In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be

A partner of thy throne

By winged Fantasy,

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95

100

105

I 10

115

A shelter from the fervour of His eye;

For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirr'd not - breath'd not for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

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Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call

125

Silence which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings -
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by;
And the red winds are withering in the sky!

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"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run,

Link'd to a little system and one sun

Where all my love is folly, and the crowd

135

Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean wrath

(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?) -
What tho' in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky-
Apart― like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light!
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy

To the proud orbs that twinkle — and so be

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To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban

Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!"

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve! - on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love—and one moon adore
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain
Her way—but left not yet her Therasaan reign.

PART II

High on a mountain of enamell'd head-
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees

With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven,"

What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven —
Of rosy head, that towering far away

Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray

Of sunken suns at eve at noon of night,

While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light-
Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.

A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown

A window of one circular diamond, there,

Look'd out above into the purple air,

And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
And hallow'd all the beauty twice again,

25

Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring,
Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing.
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world: that greyish green
That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave
Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave
And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout
That from his marble dwelling peered out,

30

Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche —
Achaian statues in a world so rich!

35

Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis,

From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave
Is now upon
thee - but too late to save!

Sound loves to revel in a summer night :
Witness the murmur of the grey twilight

That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,

Of many a wild star gazer long ago

That stealeth ever on the ear of him

Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,

27 his: a (Yankee).

33 peeréd: ventured (Yankee, 1829).

37 the thy (1831).

:

38 Of: Too (1831).

39 After this line, Yankee introduces the following lines:

Far down within the crystal of the lake

Thy swollen pillars tremble — and so quake
The hearts of many wanderers who look in
Thy luridness of beauty and of sin.

40 in near (1829, 1831).

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45

A pause and then a sweeping, falling strain,
And Nesace is in her halls again.

50

From the wild energy of wanton haste

Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;
And zone that clung around her gentle waist

Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
Within the centre of that hall to breathe
She paus'd and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,
The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair
And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there!

Young flowers were whispering in melody
To happy flowers that night- and tree to tree;

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60

Fountains were gushing music as they fell
In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
Yet silence came upon material things

Fair flowers, bright waterfalls, and angel wings

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And sound alone, that from the spirit sprang,