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Mantling the east, by Aurora’s peering hand

       Were lifted from the water’s breast, and faun’d

       Into sweet air; and sober’d morning came

       Meekly through billows:–when like taper-flame

       Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,

       He rose in silence, and once more ‘gan fare

      Along his fated way.

      Far had he roam’d,

      With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam’d

       Above, around, and at his feet; save things

       More dead than Morpheus’ imaginings:

       Old rusted anchors, helmets, breastplates large

       Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;

       Rudders that for a hundred years had lost

       The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss’d

       With long-forgotten story, and wherein

       No reveller had ever dipp’d a chin But those of Saturn’s vintage; mouldering scrolls,

       Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls

       Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude

       In ponderous stone, developing the mood

       Of ancient Nox;–then skeletons of man,

       Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,

       And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw

       Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe

       These secrets struck into him; and unless

       Dian had chaced away that heaviness, He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,

       He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal

       About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

      “What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move

       My heart so potently? When yet a child

       I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil’d.

       Thou seem’dst my sister: hand in hand we went

       From eve to morn across the firmament.

       No apples would I gather from the tree,

       Till thou hadst cool’d their cheeks deliciously: No tumbling water ever spake romance,

       But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:

       No woods were green enough, no bower divine,

       Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:

       In sowing time ne’er would I dibble take,

       Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;

       And, in the summer tide of blossoming,

       No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing

       And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.

       No melody was like a passing spright If it went not to solemnize thy reign.

       Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain

       By thee were fashion’d to the selfsame end;

       And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend

       With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;

       Thou wast the mountain-top–the sage’s pen–

       The poet’s harp–the voice of friends–the sun;

       Thou wast the river–thou wast glory won;

       Thou wast my clarion’s blast–thou wast my steed–

       My goblet full of wine–my topmost deed:– Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!

       O what a wild and harmonized tune

       My spirit struck from all the beautiful!

       On some bright essence could I lean, and lull

       Myself to immortality: I prest

       Nature’s soft pillow in a wakeful rest.

       But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss–

       My strange love came–Felicity’s abyss!

       She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away–

       Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway Has been an under-passion to this hour.

       Now I begin to feel thine orby power

       Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,

       Keep back thine influence, and do not blind

       My sovereign vision.–Dearest love, forgive

       That I can think away from thee and live!–

       Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize

       One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!

       How far beyond!” At this a surpris’d start

       Frosted the springing verdure of his heart; For as he lifted up his eyes to swear

       How his own goddess was past all things fair,

       He saw far in the concave green of the sea

       An old man sitting calm and peacefully.

       Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,

       And his white hair was awful, and a mat

       Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;

       And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,

       A cloak of blue wrapp’d up his aged bones,

       O’erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form

       Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,

       And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar

       Were emblem’d in the woof; with every shape

       That skims, or dives, or sleeps, ‘twixt cape and cape.

       The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,

       Yet look upon it, and ’twould size and swell

       To its huge self; and the minutest fish

       Would pass the very hardest gazer’s wish,

       And shew his little eye’s anatomy. Then there was pictur’d the regality

       Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,

       In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.

       Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,

       And in his lap a book, the which he conn’d

       So stedfastly, that the new denizen

       Had time to keep him in amazed ken,

       To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

      The old man rais’d his hoary head and saw

       The wilder’d stranger–seeming not to see, His features were so lifeless. Suddenly

       He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows

       Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs

       Furrow’d deep wrinkles in his forehead large,

       Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,

       Till round his wither’d lips had gone a smile.

       Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil

       Had watch’d for years in forlorn hermitage,

       Who had not from mid-life to utmost age

       Eas’d in one accent his o’erburden’d soul, Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp’d his stole,

       With convuls’d clenches waving it abroad,

       And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw’d

      

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