Swung themselves, and in low tones

replied;

Till the fountain spouted, showering wide Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail; Then the music touch'd the gates and died; Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,

As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,

Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew:

Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,

The nerve-dissolving melody
Flutter'd headlong from the sky.

III.

And then I look'd up toward a mountaintract,

That girt the region with high cliff and

lawn:

I saw that every morning, far withdrawn Beyond the darkness and the cataract, God made himself an awful rose of dawn,

Unheeded and detaching, fold by fold, From those still heights, and, slowly

drawing near,

A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold,