Part I.<\/p>\n
O! NOTHING earthly save the ray
\n(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye,
\nAs in those gardens where the day
\nSprings from the gems of Circassy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nO! nothing earthly save the thrill
\nOf melody in woodland rill \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nOr (music of the passion-hearted)
\nJoy’s voice so peacefully departed
\nThat like the murmur in the shell,
\nIts echo dwelleth and will dwell \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nWith nothing of the dross of ours \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nYet all the beauty \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all the flowers
\nThat list our Love, and deck our bowers
\nAdorn yon world afar, afar \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe wandering star \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n‚Twas a sweet time for Nesace \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for there
\nHer world lay lolling on the golden air,
\nNear four bright suns \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a temporary rest \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA garden-spot in desert of the blest.
\n
\n Away \u00e2\u20ac\u201d away \u00e2\u20ac\u201d mid seas of rays that roll
\nEmpyrean splendor o’er th‘ unchained soul \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
\nCan struggle to its destin’d eminence \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTo distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
\nAnd late to ours, the favour’d one of God \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut, now, the ruler of an anchor’d realm,
\nShe throws aside the sceptre \u00e2\u20ac\u201d leaves the helm,
\nAnd, amid incense, and high spiritual hymns,
\nLaves in quadruple light her angel limbs.<\/p>\n
Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
\nWhence sprang the „Idea of Beauty“ into birth.
\n(Falling in wreaths thro‘ many a startled star,
\nLike woman’s hair ‚mid pearls, until, afar,
\nIt lit on hills Archaian, and there dwelt)
\nShe look’d into Infinity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and knelt.
\nRich clouds, for canopies, about her curled \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFit emblems of the model of her world \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSeen but in beauty \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not impeding sight
\nOf other beauty glittering thro‘ the light \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA wreath that twined each starry form around.
\nAnd all the opal’d air in colour bound.<\/p>\n
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
\nOf flowers: of lilies such as rear the head
\n*On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
\nSo eagerly around about to hang
\nUpon the flying footsteps of \u00e2\u20ac\u201d deep pride \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0Of her who lov’d a mortal \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and so died \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe Sephalica, budding with young bees,
\nUprear’d its purple stem around her knees \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a1And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnamed \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nInmate of highest stars, where erst it sham’d
\nAll other loveliness: its honied dew
\n(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
\nDeliriously sweet, was dropp’d from Heaven.
\nAnd fell on gardens of the unforgiven
\nIn Trebizond \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and on a sunny flower
\nSo like its own above that, to this hour,
\nIt still remaineth torturing the bee
\nWith madness, and unwonted reverie \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nIn Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
\nAnd blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
\nDisconsolate linger \u00e2\u20ac\u201d grief that hangs her head,
\nRepenting follies that full long have fled,
\nHeaving her white breast to the balmy air
\nLike guilty beauty, chasten’d, and more fair \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nNyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
\nShe fears to perfume, perfuming the night \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n*And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
\nWhile pettish tears adown her petals run \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
\nBursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
\nIts way to Heaven, from garden of a king \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n*And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
\nFrom struggling with the waters of the Rhone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
\nI sola d’oro! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Fior di Levante! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a1And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
\nWith Indian Cupid down the holy river \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
\n\u00a7To bear the Goddess‘ song, in odours, up to Heaven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n
\t„Spirit! that dwellest where,
\n In the deep sky,
\nThe terrible and fair,
\n In beauty vie!
\nBeyond the line of blue \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n The boundary of the star
\nWhich turneth at the view
\n Of thy barrier and thy bar \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nOf the barrier overgone
\n By the comets who were cast
\nFrom their pride, and from their throne
\n To be drudges till the last \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTo be carriers of fire
\n (The red fire of their heart)
\nWith speed that may not tire
\n And with pain that shall not part \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nWho livest \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that we know \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n In Eternity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we feel \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut the shadow of whose brow
\n What spirit shall reveal?
\nTho‘ the beings whom thy Nesace,
\n Thy messenger hath known
\nHave dream’d for thy Infinity
\n *A model of their own \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <\/p>\n
Thy will is done, O! God!<\/p>\n
The star hath ridden high
\nThro‘ many a tempest, but she rode
\n Beneath thy burning eye
\nAnd here, in thought, to thee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n In thought that can alone
\nAscend thy empire and so be
\n A partner of thy throne
\n*By winged Fantasy,
\n My embassy is given
\nTill secrecy shall knowledge be
\n In the environs of Heaven.“<\/p>\n
She ceas’d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and buried then her burning cheek
\nAbash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek
\nA shelter from the fervor of his eye
\nFor the stars trembled at the Deity. <\/p>\n
She stirr’d not \u00e2\u20ac\u201d breath’d not \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for a voice was there
\nHow solemnly pervading the calm air
\nA sound of silence on the startled ear
\nWhich dreamy poets name „the music of the sphere.“
\nOurs is a world of words: Quiet we call
\n„Silence“ \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which is the merest word of all \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nHere Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things
\nFlap shadowy sounds from visionary wings \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
\nThe eternal voice of God is passing by,
\nAnd the red winds are withering in the sky!
\n*“What tho‘ in worlds which sightless Cycles run
\nLink’d to a little system, and one sun
\nWhere all my love is folly and the crowd
\nStill think my terrors but the thunder cloud
\nThe storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)
\nWhat tho‘ in worlds which own a single sun
\nThe sands of Time grow dimmer as they run
\nYet thine is my resplendency, so given
\nTo bear my secrets thro‘ the upper Heaven:
\nLeave tenantless thy chrystal home, and fly,
\nWith all thy train, athwart the moony sky \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n*Apart \u00e2\u20ac\u201d like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
\nAnd wing to other worlds another light;
\nDivulge the secrets of thy embassy
\nTo the proud orbs that twinkle \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and so be
\nTo ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban
\nLest the stars totter in the guilt of man.“<\/p>\n
Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
\nThe single-mooned eve! on Earth we plight
\nOur faith to one love \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and one moon adore \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
\nAs sprang that yellow star from downy hours
\nUp rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
\nAnd bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0Her way \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but left not yet her Theras\u00e6an reign.<\/p>\n
Part II.<\/p>\n
HIGH on a mountain of enamell’d head \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSuch as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
\nOf giant pasturage lying at his ease,
\nRaising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
\nWith many a mutter’d „hope to be forgiven“
\nWhat time the moon is quadrated in Heaven \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nOf rosy head that, towering far away
\nInto the sunlit ether, caught the ray
\nOf sunken suns at eve \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at noon of night,
\nWhile the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nUprear’d upon such height arose a pile
\nOf gorgeous columns on th‘ unburthen’d air,
\nFlashing from Parian marble that twin smile
\nFar down upon the wave that sparkled there,
\nAnd nursled the young mountain in its lair:
\n*Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
\nThro‘ the ebon air, besilvering the pall
\nOf their own dissolution, while they die \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAdorning then the dwellings of the sky:
\nA dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
\nSat gently on these columns as a crown \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA window of one circular diamond, there,
\nLook’d out above into the purple air,
\nAnd rays from God shot down that meteor chain
\nAnd hallow’d all the beauty twice again,
\nSave when, between th‘ Empyrean and that ring,
\nSome eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing:
\nBut on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
\nThe dimness of this world: that greyish green
\nThat Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave
\nLurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd ev’ry sculptur’d cherub thereabout
\nThat, from his marble dwelling ventur’d out
\nSeem’d earthly in the shallow of his niche \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nArchaian statues in a world so rich?
\n*Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFrom Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
\n*Of beautiful Gomorrah! O! the wave
\nIs now upon thee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but too late to save! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d<\/p>\n
Sound loves to revel near a summer night:
\nWitness the murmur of the grey twilight
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
\nOf many a wild star-gazer long ago \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThat stealeth ever on the ear of him,
\nWho, musing, gazeth on the distance dim,
\nAnd sees the darkness coming as a cloud \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a1Is not its form \u00e2\u20ac\u201d its voice \u00e2\u20ac\u201d most palpable and loud?<\/p>\n
But what is this? \u00e2\u20ac\u201d it cometh \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it brings
\nA music with it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctis the rush of wings \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA pause \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and then a sweeping, falling strain
\nAnd Nesace is in her halls again:
\nFrom the wild energy of wanton haste
\n Her cheek was flushing, and her lips apart;
\nAnd zone that clung around her gentle waist
\n Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart:
\nWithin the centre of that hall to breathe
\nShe paus’d and panted, Zanthe! all beneath \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe fairy light that kiss’d her golden hair
\nAnd long’d to rest, yet could but sparkle there!<\/p>\n
*Young flowers were whispering in melody
\nTo happy flowers that night \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and tree to tree;
\nFountains were gushing music as they fell
\nIn many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
\nYet silence came upon material things \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd sound alone that from the spirit sprang
\nBore burthen to the charm the maiden sang.<\/p>\n
\t“ ‚Neath blue-bell or streamer \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n Or tufted wild spray
\nThat keeps, from the dreamer,
\n \u00e2\u20ac\u00a0 The moonbeam away \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBright beings! that ponder,
\n With half closing eyes,
\nOn the stars which your wonder
\n Hath drawn from the skies,
\nTill they glance thro‘ the shade, and
\n Come down to your brow
\nLike \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u201d eyes of the maiden
\n Who calls on you now \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nArise! from your dreaming
\n In violet bowers,
\nTo duty beseeming
\n These star-litten hours \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd shake from your tresses
\n Encumber’d with dew
\nThe breath of those kisses
\n That cumber them too \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n(O! how, without you, Love!
\n could angels be blest)?
\nThose kisses of true love
\n That lull’d ye to rest:
\nUp! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d shake from your wing
\n Each hindering thing:
\nThe dew of the night \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n It would weigh down your flight;
\nAnd true love caresses \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n O! leave them apart,
\nThey are light on the tresses,
\n But hang on the heart.<\/p>\n
Ligeia! Ligeia!
\n My beautiful one!
\nWhose harshest idea
\n Will to melody run,
\nO ! is it thy will
\n On the breezes to toss?
\nOr, capriciously still,
\n * Like the lone Albatross,
\nIncumbent on night
\n (As she on the air)
\nTo keep watch with delight
\n On the harmony there?<\/p>\n
Ligeia! whatever
\n Thy image may be
\nNo magic shall sever
\n Thy music from thee:
\nThou hast bound many eyes
\n In a dreamy sleep \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut the strains still arise
\n Which thy vigilance keep \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe sound of the rain
\n Which leaps down to the flower,
\nAnd dances again
\n In the rhythm of the shower \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n* The murmur that springs
\n From the growing of grass
\nAre the music of things\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n But are modell’d, alas!\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAway, then my dearest,
\n O! hie thee away
\nTo springs that lie clearest
\n Beneath the moon ray \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTo lone lake that smiles,
\n In its dream of deep rest,
\nAt the many star-isles
\n That enjewel its breast \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nWhere wild flowers, creeping,
\n Have mingled their shade,
\nOn its margin is sleeping
\n Full many a maid \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSome have left the cool glade, and
\n * Have slept with the bee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nArouse them my maiden,
\n On moorland and lea\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nGo! breathe on their slumber,
\n All softly in ear,
\nThe musical number
\n They slumber’d to hear \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFor what can awaken
\n An angel so soon
\nWhose sleep hath been taken
\n Beneath the cold moon
\nAs the spell which no slumber
\n Of witchery may test,
\nThe rythmical number
\n Which lull’d him to rest?“<\/p>\n
Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
\nA thousand seraphs burst th‘ Empyrean thro‘,
\nYoung dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSeraphs in all but „Knowledge,“ the keen light
\nThat fell, refracted, thro‘ thy bounds, afar
\nO! Death! from eye of God upon that star:
\nSweet was that error \u00e2\u20ac\u201d sweeter still that death \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSweet was that error \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ev’n with us the breath
\nOf science dims the mirror of our joy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTo them ‚twere the Simoom, and would destroy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nFor what (to them) availeth it to know
\nThat Truth is Falsehood \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or that Bliss is Woe?
\nSweet was their death \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with them to die was rife
\nWith the last extacy of satiate life \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBeyond that death no immortality \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut sleep that pondereth and is not „to be“ \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd there \u00e2\u20ac\u201d oh! may my weary spirit dwell \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\n*Apart from Heaven’s Eternity \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and yet how far from Hell!
\nWhat guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
\nHeard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
\nBut two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
\nTo those who hear not for their beating hearts.
\nA maiden-angel and her seraph-lover \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nO! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
\nWas Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0Unguided Love hath fallen \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmid „tears of perfect moan:“ <\/p>\n
He was a goodly spirit \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he who fell:
\nA wanderer by mossy, mantled well \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA gazer on the lights that shine above \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nA dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
\nWhat wonder? For each star is eye-like there,
\nAnd looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd they, and ev’ry mossy spring were holy
\nTo his love haunted heart and melancholy.
\nThe night had found (to him a night of wo)
\nUpon a mountain crag, young Angelo \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBeetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
\nAnd scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
\nHere sate he with his love \u00e2\u20ac\u201d his dark eye bent
\nWith eagle gaze along the firmament:
\nNow turn’d it upon her \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but ever then
\nIt trembled to one constant star again.
\n„Iante, dearest, see! how dim that ray!
\nHow lovely \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctis to look so far away!
\nShe seem’d not thus upon that autumn eve
\nI left her gorgeous halls \u00e2\u20ac\u201d nor mourn’d to leave:
\nThat eve \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that eve \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I should remember well \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nThe sun-ray dropp’d, in Lemnos, with a spell
\nOn th‘ \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcArabesq‘ carving of a gilded hall
\nWherein I sate, and on the drapried wall \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd on my eye lids \u00e2\u20ac\u201d O! the heavy light!
\nHow drowsily it weigh’d them into night!
\nOn flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
\nWith Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
\nBut O! that light! \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I slumber’d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Death, the while,
\nStole o’er my senses in that lovely isle
\nSo softly that no single silken hair
\nAwoke that slept \u00e2\u20ac\u201d or knew that it was there.<\/p>\n
The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon
\n* Was a proud temple call’d the Parthenon \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nMore beauty clung around her column’d wall
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0Than ev’n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
\nAnd when old Time my wing did disenthral
\nThence sprang I \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as the eagle from his tower,
\nAnd years I left behind me in an hour.
\nWhat time upon her airy bounds I hung
\nOne half the garden of her globe was flung
\nUnrolling as a chart unto my view \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nTenantless cities of the desert too!
\nIanthe, beauty crowded on me then,
\nAnd half I wish’d to be again of men.<\/p>\n
„My Angelo! and why of them to be?
\nA brighter dwelling-place is here for thee \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nAnd greener fields than in yon world above,
\nAnd women’s loveliness \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and passionate love.<\/p>\n
„But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
\n*Fail’d, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft,
\nPerhaps my brain grew dizzy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but the world
\nI left so late was into chaos hurl’d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nSprang from her station, on the winds apart,
\nAnd roll’d, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
\nMethought, my sweet one, then I ceas’d to soar
\nAnd fell \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not swiftly as I rose before,
\nBut with a downward, tremulous motion thro‘
\nLight, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
\nNor long the measure of my falling hours,
\nFor neared of all stars was thine to ours \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nDread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
\nA red D\u00e6dalion on the timid Earth!
\n„We came \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and to thy Earth \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but not to us
\nBe given our lady’s bidding to discuss:
\nWe came, my love; around, above, below,
\nGay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
\nNor ask a reason save the angel-nod
\nShe grants to us, as granted by her God \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl’d
\nNever his fairy wing o’er fairier world!
\nDim was its little disk, and angel eyes
\nAlone could see the phantom in the skies,
\nWhen first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
\nHeadlong thitherward o’er the starry sea \u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nBut when its glory swell’d upon the sky,
\nAs glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,
\nWe paus’d before the heritage of men,
\nAnd thy star trembled \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as doth Beauty then!“
\nThus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
\nThe night that waned and waned and brought no day
\nThey fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
\nWho hear not for the beating of their hearts. <\/p>\n