Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life so young Apollo anguish'd:
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld

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Her arms as one who prophesied.-At length
Apollo shriek'd;-and lo! from all his limbs
Celestial

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HYPERION, A VISION:

ATTEMPTED RECONSTRUCTION OF THE POEM.

FANATICS have their dreams, wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,
From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep
Guesses at heaven; pity these have not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance,

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,-
With the fine spell of words alone can save
Imagination from the sable chain

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,
"Thou art no Poet-may'st not tell thy dreams?"
Since every man whose soul is not a clod
Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved,
And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

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IC

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Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be known
When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime,
Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,
With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen,
In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise
Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch.
Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round
I saw an arbour with a drooping roof
Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,
Like floral censers, swinging light in air;
Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound
Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,
Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal
By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

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For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass,

And grapestalks but half-bare, and remnants more

Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.
Still was more plenty than the fabled horn

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Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting,
For Proserpine return'd to her own fields,
Where the white heifers low. And appetite,
More yearning than on earth I ever felt,
Growing within, I ate deliciously,—
And, after not long, thirsted; for thereby
Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

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Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,

And pledging all the mortals of the world,

And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

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Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.
No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading, jealous, Caliphat,

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell,

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To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,

Could so have rapt unwilling life away.
Among the fragrant husks and berries crush'd
Upon the grass, I struggled hard against
The domineering potion, but in vain.

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank,
Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.
When sense of life return'd, I started up
As if with wings, but the fair trees were gone,
The mossy mound and arbour were no more:
I look'd around upon the curved sides
Of an old sanctuary, with roof august,
Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds

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Might spread beneath as o'er the stars of heaven.
So old the place was, I remember'd none
The like upon the earth: what I had seen

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Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,
The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,

Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit things

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To that eternal domed monument.

Upon the marble at my feet there lay

Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

Which needs had been of dyed asbestos wove,
Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

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So white the linen, so, in some, distinct

Ran imageries from a sombre loom.

All in a mingled heap confus'd there lay
Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing-dish,
Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.

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Turning from these with awe, once more I raised

My eyes to fathom the space every way:

The embossed roof, the silent massy range

Of columns north and south, ending in mist

Of nothing; then to eastward, where black gates

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Were shut against the sunrise evermore;

Then to the west I look'd, and saw far off

An image, huge of feature as a cloud,

At level of whose feet an altar slept,

To be approach'd on either side by steps
And marble balustrade, and patient travail
To count with toil the innumerable degrees.
Towards the altar sober-pac'd I went,
Repressing haste as too unholy there;
And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine
One ministering; and there arose a flame
When in mid-day the sickening east-wind
Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain
Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers,
And fills the air with so much pleasant health
That even the dying man forgets his shroud ;-
Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,
Sending forth Maian incense, spread around
Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,
And clouded all the altar with soft smoke;
From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard
Language pronounc'd: "If thou canst not ascend
These steps, die on that marble where thou art.
Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,
Will parch for lack of nutriment; thy bones
Will wither in few years, and vanish so
That not the quickest eye could find a grain
Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.
The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,
And no hand in the universe can turn
Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt
Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps."
I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once,

So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed.
Prodigious seem'd the toil; the leaves were yet
Burning, when suddenly a palsied chill
Struck from the paved level up my limbs,
And was ascending quick to put cold grasp
Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat.
I shriek'd, and the sharp anguish of my shriek
Stung my own ears; I strove hard to escape
The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step.
Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold
Grew stifling, suffocating at the heart;
And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not.
One minute before death my ic'd foot touch'd
The lowest stair; and, as it touch'd, life seem'd
To pour in at the toes; I mounted up
As once fair angels on a ladder flew

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From the green turf to heaven. "Holy Power,"
Cry'd I, approaching near the horned shrine,
"What am I that should so be sav'd from death?
What am I that another death come not
To choke my utterance, sacrilegious, here?"
Then said the veiled shadow: "Thou hast felt

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What 'tis to die and live again before

Thy fated hour; that thou hadst power to do so
Is thine own safety; thou hast dated on

Thy doom." "High Prophetess," said I, "purge off, 145 Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film."

"None can usurp this height," return'd that shade,
"But those to whom the miseries of the world

Are misery, and will not let them rest.
All else who find a haven in the world,

Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,
If by a chance into this fane they come,
Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half."

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