has shaven,

Which rain could never bend, or

whirl-blast shake,

With the Antarctic constellations paven, Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake

There she would build herself a windless haven

Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make

The bastions of the storm, when through the sky

The spirits of the tempest thundered by.

XLIX

A haven beneath whose translucent floor

pranks,

Circling the image of a shooting star, Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks

Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,

In her light boat; and many quips and cranks

She played upon the water, till the

car

Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,

To journey from the misty east began.

LII

And then she called out of the hollow turrets

Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

fathomably,

And around which the solid vapours

In mighty legions, million after

million,

They came, each troop emblazoning its merits

On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion

Of the intertexture of the atmosphere They pitched upon the plain of the calm

mere.

LIII

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen

Of woven exhalations, underlaid With lambent lightning-fire, as may be

seen

A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid With crimson silk cressets from the

serene

Hung there, and on the water for her

tread

A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, Dyed in the beams of the ascending

moon.

LIV

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught

device,

Which, murmured on mute lips with

tender tone,

LXX

own.

LXVII

Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have

given

a

For such charm when Tithon became gray?

Or how much, Venus, of thy silver Heaven

Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proser. pina

Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven

she

Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook

The light out of the funeral lamps, to be A mimic day within that deathy nook; And she unwound the woven imagery

Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took

The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

LXXI

to pay, To any witch who would have taught

you it?

The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

LXVIII

'Tis said in after times her spirit free Knew what love was, and felt itself alone

But holy Dian could not chaster be

Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, Than now this lady-like a sexless bee Tasting all blossoms, and confined to

none,

Among those mortal forms, the wizardmaiden

Past with an eye serene and heart unladen.

LXIX

To those she saw most beautiful, she gave

Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and

undecaying,

Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle smiles about its eyelids

playing,

And living in its dreams beyond the

rage

Of death or life; while they were

still arraying

In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind And fleeting generations of mankind.

LXXII

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain

Of those who were less beautiful, and make

All harsh and crooked purposes more vain

Than in the desert is the serpent's wake

sweet wave,

And lived thenceforward as if some control,

Mightier than life, were in them; and

The miser in such dreams would rise and shake

Into a beggar's lap ;-the lying scribe Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

LXXIII

the grave

Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, How the god Apis really was a bull,

And nothing more; and bid the herald stick

The same against the temple doors, and pull

They hardly knew whether they loved

or not,

Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,

To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;

all to speak

Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,

By pastoral letters to each diocese.

LXXIV

The king would dress an ape up in his

crown

And robes, and seat him on his glori ous seat,

And on the right hand of the sunlike throne

Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat

The chatterings of the monkey.-Every

one

Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet

Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,

And kissed-alas, how many kiss the

same!

LXXV

The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and

Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;

Round the red anvils you might see them stand

Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,

Beating their swords to ploughshares;

-in a band

The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism

Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis

To the annoyance of king Amasis.

LXXVI

And timid lovers who had been so coy,

boy

Met one another, both, like sinners caught,

Blushed at the thing which each believed

was done

Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shone;

LXXVII

And then the Witch would let them take no ill:

Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,

The Witch found one,-and so they took their fill

Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.

Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,

Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind

from mind!

She did unite again with visions clear Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

LXXVIII

These were the pranks she played among the cities

Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites

And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties

To do her will, and show their subtle

slights,

I will declare another time; for it is
A tale more fit for the weird winter

nights, Than for these garish summer days, when we

Scarcely believe much more than we

can see.