Thereon I built it firm.

Of ledge or shelf

The rock rose clear, or winding stair.

My soul would live alone unto herself

In her high palace there.

་

And "while the world runs round and round,” I said, "Reign thou apart, a quiet king,

Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring."

To which my soul made answer readily: "Trust me, in bliss I shall abide

In this great mansion, that is built for me,

So royal-rich and wide."

*

Four courts I made, East and West, South and North,

In each a squared lawn, wherefrom

The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth

A flood of fountain-foam.

And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods,

Echoing all night to that sonorous flow

Of spouted fountain-floods.

And round the roofs a gilded gallery

That lent broad verge to distant lands, Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky Dipt down to sea and sands.

From those four jets four currents in one swell
Across the mountain streamed below

In misty folds, that floating as they fell
Lit up a torrent-blow.

And high on every peak a statue seemed
To hang on tiptoe, tossing up

A cloud of incense of all odor steamed
From out a golden cup.

So that she thought, " And who shall gaze upon
My palace with unblinded eyes,

While this great bow will waver in the sun,
And that sweet incense rise?"

For that sweet incense rose and never failed,
And, while day sank or mounted higher,
The light aërial gallery, golden-railed,

Burnt like a fringe of fire.

Likewise the deep-set windows, stained and traced,
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires
From shadowed grots of arches interlaced,
And tipt with frost-like spires.

Full of long-sounding corridors it was,

That over-vaulted grateful gloom,

Through which the livelong day my soul did pass, Well-pleased, from room to room.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,

All various, each a perfect whole From living Nature, fit for every mood And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer-morn,

Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn.

One seemed all dark and red a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,

Who paced forever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon.

One showed an iron coast and angry waves.
You seemed to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.

And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves. Behind
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind.

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond a line of heights, and higher

All barred with long white cloud the scornful crags, And highest, snow and fire.

And one, an English home-gray twilight poured
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,

Softer than sleep-all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,
As fit for every mood of mind,

Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,
Not less than truth designed.

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,

*

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling, babe in arm.

Or in a clear-walled city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;
An angel looked at her.

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,

A

group

of Houris bowed to see

The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes
That said, we wait for thee.

Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son
In some fair space of sloping greens
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,

And watched by weeping queens.