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and fair!

       From thy blue throne, now filling all the air,

       Glance but one little beam of temper’d light

       Into my bosom, that the dreadful might

       And tyranny of love be somewhat scar’d!

       Yet do not so, sweet queen; one torment spar’d,

       Would give a pang to jealous misery,

       Worse than the torment’s self: but rather tie

       Large wings upon my shoulders, and point out

       My love’s far dwelling. Though the playful rout Of Cupids shun thee, too divine art thou,

       Too keen in beauty, for thy silver prow

       Not to have dipp’d in love’s most gentle stream.

       O be propitious, nor severely deem

       My madness impious; for, by all the stars

       That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars

       That kept my spirit in are burst–that I

       Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!

       How beautiful thou art! The world how deep!

       How tremulous-dazzlingly the wheels sweep Around their axle! Then these gleaming reins,

       How lithe! When this thy chariot attains

       Its airy goal, haply some bower veils

       Those twilight eyes?–Those eyes!–my spirit fails–

       Dear goddess, help! or the wide-gaping air

       Will gulph me–help!”–At this with madden’d stare,

       And lifted hands, and trembling lips he stood;

       Like old Deucalion mountain’d o’er the flood,

       Or blind Orion hungry for the morn.

       And, but from the deep cavern there was borne A voice, he had been froze to senseless stone;

       Nor sigh of his, nor plaint, nor passion’d moan

       Had more been heard. Thus swell’d it forth: “Descend,

       Young mountaineer! descend where alleys bend

       Into the sparry hollows of the world!

       Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurl’d

       As from thy threshold; day by day hast been

       A little lower than the chilly sheen

       Of icy pinnacles, and dipp’dst thine arms

       Into the deadening ether that still charms Their marble being: now, as deep profound

       As those are high, descend! He ne’er is crown’d

       With immortality, who fears to follow

       Where airy voices lead: so through the hollow,

       The silent mysteries of earth, descend!”

      He heard but the last words, nor could contend

       One moment in reflection: for he fled

       Into the fearful deep, to hide his head

       From the clear moon, the trees, and coming madness.

      ’Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness;

       Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light,

       The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly,

       But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy;

       A dusky empire and its diadems;

       One faint eternal eventide of gems.

       Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,

       Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told,

       With all its lines abrupt and angular:

       Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star, Through a vast antre; then the metal woof,

       Like Vulcan’s rainbow, with some monstrous roof

       Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss,

       It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss

       Fancy into belief: anon it leads

       Through winding passages, where sameness breeds

       Vexing conceptions of some sudden change;

       Whether to silver grots, or giant range

       Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge

       Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge Now fareth he, that o’er the vast beneath

       Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth

       A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come

       But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb

       His bosom grew, when first he, far away,

       Descried an orbed diamond, set to fray

       Old darkness from his throne: ’twas like the sun

       Uprisen o’er chaos: and with such a stun

       Came the amazement, that, absorb’d in it,

       He saw not fiercer wonders–past the wit Of any spirit to tell, but one of those

       Who, when this planet’s sphering time doth close,

       Will be its high remembrancers: who they?

       The mighty ones who have made eternal day

       For Greece and England. While astonishment

       With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went

       Into a marble gallery, passing through

       A mimic temple, so complete and true

       In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear’d

       To search it inwards; whence far off appear’d, Through a long pillar’d vista, a fair shrine,

       And, just beyond, on light tiptoe divine,

       A quiver’d Dian. Stepping awfully,

       The youth approach’d; oft turning his veil’d eye

       Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old.

       And when, more near against the marble cold

       He had touch’d his forehead, he began to thread

       All courts and passages, where silence dead

       Rous’d by his whispering footsteps murmured faint:

       And long he travers’d to and fro, to acquaint Himself with every mystery, and awe;

       Till, weary, he sat down before the maw

       Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim

       To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.

       There, when new wonders ceas’d to float before,

       And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore

       The journey homeward to habitual self!

       A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,

       Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,

       Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire, Into the bosom of a hated thing.

      What misery most drowningly doth sing

       In lone Endymion’s ear, now he has caught

       The goal of consciousness? Ah, ’tis the thought,

       The deadly feel of solitude: for lo!

       He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow

       Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild

       In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-pil’d,

       The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west,

       Like herded elephants; nor felt, nor prest Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumberous air;

      

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