The other, rosy as the morn Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul? Must that divinest form, Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction's breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin? Spare nothing but a gloomy theme On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Chaseth into darkness? Will Ianthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture, from her smile? Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, Once breathing eloquence That might have soothed a tiger's rage, Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed, And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark-blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. Hark! whence that rushing sound? 'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps Around a lonely ruin, When west winds sigh, and evening waves respond In whispers from the shore; 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Floating on waves of music and of light, These the Queen of Spells drew in; Upon the slumbering maid. Human eye hath ne'er beheld A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful, The broad and yellow moon Moved not the moonlight's line. Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene,— Saw but the fairy pageant,— That filled the lonely dwelling. The Fairy's frame was slight; slight as some cloud That catches but the palest tinge of day When evening yields to night,Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue Its transitory robe. Her thin and misty form Moved with the moving air; Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds "Maiden, the world's supremest Spirit "For thou hast earned a mighty boon; Of self-oblivious solitude. "Custom and faith and power thou spurnest, From hate and awe thy heart is free; Ardent and pure as day thou burnest; For dark and cold mortality A living light, to cheer it long "Therefore, from Nature's inner shrine, Where gods and fiends in worship bend, Majestic Spirit, be it thine The flame to seize, the veil to rend, Where the vast snake Eternity In charmed sleep doth ever lie. "All that inspires thy voice of love, Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes, Spirit, leave, for mine and me, It ceased and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant Spirit rose, All beautiful in naked purity. Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness Had passed away; it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Upon the couch the body lay, Wrapped in the depth of slumber : Its features were fixed and meaningless; And every organ yet performed Its natural functions. 'Twas a sight Yet oh how different! One aspires to heaven, And, ever-changing, ever-rising still, Wantons in endless being. The other, for a time the unwilling sport Fairy. Spirit who hast dived so deep, Thou the fearless, thou the mild, Accept the boon thy worth hath earned,— Ascend the car with me. Spirit. Do I dream? Is this new feeling But a visioned ghost of slumber? If indeed I am a Soul, A free, a disembodied Soul, Speak again to me. Fairy. I am the Fairy Mab. To me 'tis given The wonders of the human world to keep. + The secrets of the immeasurable past Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit, Ascend the car with me! The chains of earth's immurement Fell from Ianthe's Spirit ; They shrank and brake like bandages of straw The silver clouds disparted; Real''s And, as the car of magic they ascended, Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen, Shaking the beamy reins, Bade them pursue their way. The magic car moved on. The night was fair, and countless stars |