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XL.

Deep slumber fell on me :-my dreams were fire,

Soft and delightful thoughts did rest and hover

Like shadows o'er my brain; and strange desire,

The tempest of a passion, raging over

My tranquil soul, its depths with light did

cover,

Which passed; and calm, and darkness, sweeter far

Came-then I loved; but not a human lover! For when I rose from sleep, the Morning Star Shone through the woodbine wreaths which round my casement were.

XLI.

'Twas like an eye which seemed to smile on

me.

I watched till, by the sun made pale, it sank Under the billows of the heaving sea;

But from its beams deep love my spirit drank, And to my brain the boundless world now shrank

Into one thought-one image-yes, for ever! Even like the dayspring, poured on vapours dank,

The beams of that one Star did shoot and quiver

Through my benighted mind-and were extinguished never.

XLII.

The day passed thus: at night, methought in dream

A shape of speechless beauty did appear:

It stood like light on a careering stream Of golden clouds which shook the atmosphere;

A winged youth, his radiant brow did wear The Morning Star: a wild dissolving bliss Over my frame he breathed, approaching

near,

And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss,

XLIII.

And said: a Spirit loves thee, mortal maiden, How wilt thou prove thy worth? Then joy and sleep

Together fled, my soul was deeply laden,
And to the shore I went to muse and weep;
But as I moved, over my heart did creep
A joy less soft, but more profound and strong
Than my sweet dream; and it forbade to keep
The path of the sea-shore: that Spirit's
tongue

Seemed whispering in my heart, and bore my steps along.

XLIV.

How, to that vast and peopled city led,
Which was a field of holy warfare then,
I walked among the dying and the dead,
And shared in fearless deeds with evil men,
Calm as an angel in the dragon's den-
How I braved death for liberty and truth,
And spurned at peace, and power, and fame;
and when

Those hopes had lost the glory of their youth, How sadly I returned-might move the hearer's ruth:

XLV.

Warm tears throng fast! the tale may not be said

Know then, that when this grief had been subdued,

I was not left, like others, cold and dead; The Spirit whom I loved in solitude Sustained his child: the tempest-shaken wood, The waves, the fountains, and the hush of night

These were his voice, and well I understood His smile divine, when the calm sea was bright

With silent stars, and Heaven was breathless with delight.

XLVI.

In lonely glens, amid the roar of rivers, When the dim nights were moonless, have I known

Joys which no tongue can tell; my pale lip quivers

When thought revisits them :-know thou alone,

That after many wondrous years were flown, I was awakened by a shriek of woe;

And over me a mystic robe was thrown, By viewless hands, and a bright Star did glow Before my steps-the Snake then met his mortal foe.

XLVII.

Thou fearest not then the Serpent on thy heart?

Fear it! she said, with brief and passionate

cry,

And spake no more: that silence made me start

I looked, and we were sailing pleasantly, Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky, Beneath the rising moon seen far away; Mountains of ice, like sapphire, piled on high Hemming the horizon round, in silence lay On the still waters-these we did approach alway.

XLVIII.

And swift and swifter grew the vessel's motion,
So that a dizzy trance fell on my brain—
Wild music woke me: we had passed the ocean
Which girds the pole, Nature's remotest
reign-

And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
Of waters, azure with the noon-tide day.
Etherial mountains shone around-a Fane
Stood in the midst, girt by green isles which
lay

On the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.

XLIX.

It was a Temple, such as mortal hand
Has never built, nor ecstasy, nor dream,
Reared in the cities of enchanted land:
'Twas likest Heaven, ere yet day's purple

stream

Ebbs o'er the western forest, while the gleam Of the unrisen moon among the clouds

Is gathering when with many a golden beam The thronging constellations rush in crowds, Paving with fire the sky and the marmoreal floods.

L.

Like what may be conceived of this vast dome, When from the depths which thought can seldom pierce

Genius beholds it rise, his native home,
Girt by the deserts of the Universe,

Yet, nor in painting's light, or mightier verse,
Or sculpture's marble language can invest
That shape to mortal sense-such glooms
immerse

That incommunicable sight, and rest Upon the labouring brain and overburthened breast.

LI.

Winding among the lawny islands fair, Whose blosmy1 forests starred the shadowy deep,

The wingless boat paused where an ivory stair
Its fretwork in the crystal sea did steep,
Encircling that vast Fane's aërial heap:
We disembarked, and through a portal wide
We passed-whose roof, of moonstone carved,
did keep

A glimmering o'er the forms on every side, Sculptures like life and thought; immovable, deep-eyed.

LII.

We came to a vast hall, whose glorious roof Was diamond, which had drank the lightning's sheen

In darkness, and now poured it through the woof

Of spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen

This is the right word, not bloomy as in Mrs. Shelley's editions: blosmy is good old English.-ED.

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