Shot thro' the lines of many waves inwoven,
Like sunlight thro' acacia woods at even,
Thro' which, his way the diver having cloven,
Past like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.

"And then," she said, "he laid me in a cave
Above the waters, by that chasm of sea,

A fountain round and vast, in which the wave
Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,
Down which, one moment resting, he did flee.
Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell
Like an upaithric temple wide and high,

Whose aëry dome is inaccessible,

Was pierced with one round cleft thro' which the sunbeams fell.

"Below, the fountain's brink was richly paven
With the deep's wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand
Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven
With mystic legends by no mortal hand,

Left there, when, thronging to the moon's command,
The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate
Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand
Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state
Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create

"The fiend of madness, which had made its prey
Of my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile.
There was an interval of many a day,
And a sea-eagle brought me food the while,
Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle,
And who to be the jailer had been taught

Of that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile

Like light and rest at morn and even is sought,

That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought ;

"The misery of a madness slow and creeping, Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,

And the white clouds of noon, which oft were sleeping, In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,

Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there;

And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore
Thy mangled limbs for food:-Thus all things were
Transformed into the agony which I wore,

Even as a poisoned robe around my bosom's core

"

Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing,
The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;

Another frenzy came-there seemed a being
Within me-a strange load my heart did bear,
As if some living thing had made its lair
Even in the fountains of my life-a long
And wondrous vision wrought from my despair,
Then grew, like sweet reality among
Dim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.

"Methought I was about to be a mother-
Month after month went by, and still I dreamed
That we should soon be all to one another,
and my child; and still new pulses seemed
To beat beside my heart, and still I deemed
There was a babe within-and when the rain
Of winter thro' the rifted cavern streamed,
Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,

I saw that lovely shape which near my heart had lain.

"It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,

It was like thee, dear love; its eyes were thine,
Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earth
It laid its fingers, as now rest on mine
Thine own, beloved :-'twas a dream divine.
Even to remember how it fled, how swift,

How utterly, might make the heart repine,-
Tho' 'twas a dream."-Then Cythna did uplift

Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:

A doubt which would not flee, a tenderness

Of questioning grief, a source of thronging tears;
Which, having past, as one whom sobs opprest,
She spoke: "Yes, in the wilderness of years
Her memory, aye, like a green home appears.

She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,
For many months. I had no mortal fears:
Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,-
It was a human thing which to my bosom clove.

I watched the dawn of her first smiles, and soon
When zenith-stars were trembling on the wave,
Or when the beams of the invisible moon,

Or sun, from many a prism within the cave
Their gem-born shadows to the water gave,
Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand
From the swift lights which might that fountain pave,
She would mark one, and laugh, when that command
Slighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.

"Methought her looks began to talk with me;
And no articulate sounds, but something sweet
Her lips would frame,-so sweet it could not be,
That it was meaningless; her touch would meet
Mine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat
In response while we slept: and on a day
When I was happiest in that strange retreat,
With heaps of golden shells we two did play,-
Both infants weaving wings for time's perpetual way.

"Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown
Weary with joy, and tired with our delight,
We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down
On one fair mother's bosom :-from that night
She fled;-like those illusions clear and bright
Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high
Pause ere it wakens tempest:-and her flight,
Tho' 'twas the death of brainless phantasy,

Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.

"It seemed that in the dreary night, the diver
Who brought me thither came again, and bore
My child away. I saw the waters quiver,
When he so swiftly sunk, as once before:
Then morning came-it shone even as of yore,
But I was changed-the very life was gone
Out of my heart-I wasted more and more,

Day after day, and, sitting there alone,

Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan

"I was no longer mad, and yet methought

My breasts were swoln and changed:-in every vein
The blood stood still one moment, while that thought
Was passing-with a gush of sickening pain
It ebbed even to its withered springs again:
When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned
From that strange delusion, which would fain
Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned
With more thun human love,-then left it unreturned.

"So now my reason was restored to me,

I struggled with that dream, which, like a beast
Most fierce and beauteous, in my memory
Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast;
But all that cave and all its shapes possest

By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one
Some smile, some look, some gesture, which had blest
Me heretofore: I, sitting there alone,

Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

Time past, I know not whether months or years;
For day, nor night, nor change of seasons, made
Its note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:

And I became at last even as a shade,

A smoke, a cloud on which the winds above preyed, 'Till it be thin as air; until, one even,

A Nautilus upon the fountain played,

Spreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven

"And when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,
Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat,

Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing
The Eagle, hovering o'er his prey, did float;
But, when he saw that I with fear did note
His purpose, proffering my own food to him,
The eager plumes subsided on his throat-
He came where that bright child of sea did swim,
And o'er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.

"This wakened me; it gave me human strength,
And hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose,
But I resumed my ancient powers at length;
My spirit felt again like one of those

Like thine, whose fate it is to make the woes
Of human kind their prey-what was this cave?
Its deep foundation no firm purpose knows,
Immutable, resistless, strong to save,

Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.

"And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,
While that far dearer heart could move and be?
Or whilst over the earth the pali was spread,
Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free,
Could I but win that friendly bird to me,

To bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought
By intercourse of mutual imagery

Of objects, if such aid he could be taught;

But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought.

"We live in our own world, and mine was made
From glorious phantasies of hope departed:
Aye, we are darkened with their floating shade,
Or cast a lustre on them.-Time imparted
Such power to me, I became fearless-hearted;
My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,
And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted
Its lustre on all hidden things, behind

Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind,

My mind became the book through which I grew

Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,

Which like a mine I rifled through and through,

To me the keeping of its secrets gave

One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave
Whose calm reflects all moving things that are,

Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,

And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear;

Justice, and truth, and time, and the world's natural sphere.