The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form More graceful than her own.
Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
The awful ruins of the days of old :
Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,
Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx, Dark Ethiopia in her desert hills
Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images
Of more than man, where marble dæmons watch The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men
Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials
Of the world's youth; through the long burning day Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades, Suspended he that task, but ever gazed And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.
Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, Her daily portion, from her father's tent, And spread her matting for his couch, and stole From duties and repose to tend his steps: Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
To speak her love :-and watched his nightly sleep, Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath Of innocent dreams arose. Then, when red morn Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home, Wildered and wan and panting, she returned.
The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie, And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way; Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, Himself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame A permeating fire. Wild numbers then She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp Strange symphony, and in their branching veins The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. The beating of her heart was heard to fill The pauses of her music, and her breath Tumultuously accorded with those fits Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burthen. At the sound he turned, And saw, by the warm light of their own life, Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil Of woven wind; her outspread arms now bare, Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. His strong heart sank and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet Her panting bosom :-she drew back awhile;
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep, Like a dark flood suspended in its course, Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
Roused by the shock, he started from his trance. The cold white light of morning, the blue moon Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, The distinct valley and the vacant woods,
Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
Of yesternight? the sounds that soothed his sleep,
The mystery and the majesty of earth,
The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes
Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.
The Spirit of sweet Human Love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade; He overleaps the bounds. Alas! alas! Were limbs and breath and being intertwined Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost In the wide pathless desert of dim Sleep,
That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of Death Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, Lead only to a black and watery depth,-
While Death's blue vault with loathliest vapours hung, Where every shade which the foul grave exhales Hides its dead eye from the detested day, Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms? This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart : The insatiate hope which it awakened stung His brain even like despair.
While daylight held The sky, the Poet kept mute conference With his still soul. At night the passion came, Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, And shook him from his rest, and led him forth Into the darkness.- As an eagle, grasped In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast Burn with the poison, and precipitates,
Through night and day, tempest and calm and cloud, Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus, driven By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, Startling with careless step the moonlight snake, He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on, Till vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep, Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day, a weary waste of hours, Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame.
And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair, Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand
Hung like dead bone within its withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone,
As in a furnace burning secretly,
From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, Who ministered with human charity
His human wants, beheld with wondering awe Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, Encountering on some dizzy precipice
That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind, With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused In his career. The infant would conceal His troubled visage in his mother's robe In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
To remember their strange light in many a dream Of after times. But youthful maidens, taught By nature, would interpret half the woe
That wasted him, would call him with false names Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path Of his departure from their father's door.
At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main.
His eyes pursued its flight :-"Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. For Sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly Its precious charge; and silent Death exposed, Faithless perhaps as Sleep, a shadowy lure,
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.
Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around: There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
A little shallop floating near the shore Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. It had been long abandoned, for its sides Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
Swayed with the undulations of the tide. A restless impulse urged him to embark, And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste For well he knew that mighty shadow loves The slimy caverns of the populous deep.
The day was fair and sunny: sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. Following his eager soul, the wanderer
Leapt in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.
As one that in a silver vision floats Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly Along the dark and ruffled waters fled The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, With fierce gusts and precipitating force, Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. The waves arose. Higher and higher still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge, Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
Calm, and rejoicing in the fearful war
Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven With dark obliterating course, he sate : As if their genii were the ministers Appointed to conduct him to the light Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate Holding the steady helm. Evening came on; The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray That canopied his path o'er the waste deep; Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day; Night followed, clad with stars. On every side More horribly the multitudinous streams
Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock The calm and spangled sky. The little boat Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam Down the steep cataract of a wintry river; Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave; Now leaving far behind the bursting mass, That fell, convulsing ocean :-safely fled— As if that frail and wasted human form Had been an elemental god.
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