Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast. All this is beautiful in every land. But what see you beside? A shabby stand I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit Of the living stems who feed them; in whose bowers There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers; Rude, but made sweet by distance ;-and a bird Next winter you must pass with me; I'll have With every thing belonging to them fair!— And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. * "Iμepos, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonyme of Love. And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver A haven, beneath whose translucent floor Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear A subterranean portal for the river, It fled the circling sunbows did upbear Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, Lighting it far upon its lampless way. XLIII. And when the wizard lady would ascend The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, Which to the inmost mountain upward tendShe called "Hermaphroditus !" and the pale And heavy hue which slumber could extend Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, Into the darkness of the stream did pass. XLIV. And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions, With stars of fire spotting the stream below; And from above into the Sun's dominions Flinging a glory, like the golden glow In which spring clothes her emerald-winged XLV. And then it winnowed the Elysian air Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its ethereal vans-and speeding there, Like a star up the torrent of the night, Or a swift eagle in the morning glare Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight; The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs. XLVI. The water flashed like sunlight by the prow Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; The still air seemed as if its waves did flow In tempest down the mountains,―loosely driven The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro; Beneath, the billows having vainly striven Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel The swift and steady motion of the keel. XLVII. Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light His storm-outspeeding wings, th' Hermaphrodite; She to the Austral waters took her way, Beyond the fabulous Thamondocona. XLVIII. Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, With the Antarctic constellations paven, Canopus and his crew, lay th' Austral lakeThere 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. The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, And around which the solid vapours hoar, Based on the level waters, to the sky Lifted their dreadful crags; and like a shore Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly Hemmed in with rifts and precipices grey, And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. L. And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash Of the winds' scourge, foamed like a wounded And the incessant hail with stony clash [thing; Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke-this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven. LI. On which that lady played her many pranks, LII. And then she called out of the hollow turrets In mighty legions million after million On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion, LIII. They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid LIV. And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught LV. These were tame pleasures.-She would often climb And like Arion on the dolphin's back |