Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry-
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded thro' the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of love;
'Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

Second Spirit. A rainbow's arch stood on the sea.
Which rocked beneath, immoveably;
And the triumphant storm did flee,
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between with many a captive cloud
A shapeless, dark, and rapid, crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half:
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy

His plank, then plunged aside to die

Third Spirit. I sate beside a sage's bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed,
When a Dream with plumes of flame
To his pillow hovering came.
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:
I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.

Fourth Spirit. On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the aerial kisses

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom

The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,

Nor heed nor see what things they be ;
But from these create he can

Forms more real than living man,

Nurslings of immortality!

One of these awakened me,

And I sped to succour thee.

Ione. Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west

Come, as two doves to one beloved nest,
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air

On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere?
And, hark! their sweet sad voices! 'tis despair
Mingled with love, and then dissolved in sound.

Panthea. Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.

Ione. Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float On their sustaining wings of skiey grain,

Orange and azure deepening into gold:

Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.

Chorus of Spirits. Hast thou beheld the form of Love?

Fifth Spirit. As over wide dominions [wildernesses, I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's That planet-crested shape swept by on nghtning-braided pinions,

Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses: His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I pass'd 'twas fading, [madness, And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in And headless patriots and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding, [of sadness, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King

Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.

Sixth Spirit. Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing: It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air, But treads with silent footstep, and fans with silent wing The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear;

Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above
And the music stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,
Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster Love,
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now
we greet.

Chorus. Though Ruin now Love's shadow be,
Following him, destroyingly,

On Death's white and winged steed,
Which the fleetest cannot flee,

Trampling down both flower and weed,
Man and beast, and foul and fair,
Like a tempest thro' the air,

Thou shalt quell this horseman grim,
Woundless though in heart or limb.

Pro. Spirits! how know ye this shall be?

Chorus. In the atmosphere we breathe,

As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,
From spring gathering up beneath,

Whose mild winds shake the elder brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the white-thorn soon will blow
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,
When they struggle to increase,
Are to us as soft winds be

To sheperd boys, the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee.

Ione. Where are the Spirits fled?

Panthea.

Only a sense

Remains of them, like the omnipotence

Of music, when the inspired voice and lute
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute,

Which thro' the deep and labyrinthine soul,

Like echoes thro' long caverns, wind and roll.

Pro. How fair these air-born shapes! and yet I feel
Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far,
Asia! who, when my being overflowed,
Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.
All things are still: alas! how heavily
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart;
Tho' I should dream I could even sleep with grief
If slumber were denied not. I would fain
Be what it is my destiny to be,

The saviour and the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the original gulph of things:
There is no agony, and no solace left;

Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more.
Pan. Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?

Pro. I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest. Pan. Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white And Asia waits in that far Indian vale

The scene of her sad exile: rugged once

And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;

But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,

And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow
Among the woods and waters, from the ether
Of her transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!

END OF THE FIRST ACT.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus.
ASIA alone.

Asia. From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes
Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,

And beating haunts the desolated heart,

Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!

O child of many winds! As suddenly

Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up

As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life.

This is the season, this the day, the hour;

At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, oo long desired, too long delaying, come !

ow like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! The point of one white star is quivering still Deep in the orange light of widening morn Beyond the purple mountains: thro' a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning threads Of woven cloud unravel in pale air:

'Tis lost! and thro' yon peaks of cloudlike snow
The roseate sun-light quivers: hear I not

The Eolian music of her sea-green plumes
Winnowing the crimson dawn?

PANTHEA enters.

I feel, I see,

Those eyes which burn thro' smiles that fade in tears, Like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew. Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest