“When I awoke, ’twas in a twilight bower;

      Just when the light of morn, with hum of bees,

      Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh trees.

      How sweet, and sweeter! for I heard a lyre,

      And over it a sighing voice expire.

      It ceased–I caught light footsteps; and anon

      The fairest face that morn e’er look’d upon

      Push’d through a screen of roses. Starry Jove!

      With tears, and smiles, and honey-words she wove

      A net whose thraldom was more bliss than all

      The range of flower’d Elysium. Thus did fall

      The dew of her rich speech: “Ah! Art awake?

      O let me hear thee speak, for Cupid’s sake!

      I am so oppress’d with joy! Why, I have shed

      An urn of tears, as though thou wert cold dead;

      And now I find thee living, I will pour

      From these devoted eyes their silver store,

      Until exhausted of the latest drop,

      So it will pleasure thee, and force thee stop

      Here, that I too may live: but if beyond

      Such cool and sorrowful offerings, thou art fond

      Of soothing warmth, of dalliance supreme;

      If thou art ripe to taste a long love dream;

      If smiles, if dimples, tongues for ardour mute,

      Hang in thy vision like a tempting fruit,

      O let me pluck it for thee.” Thus she link’d

      Her charming syllables, till indistinct

      Their music came to my o’er-sweeten’d soul;

      And then she hover’d over me, and stole

      So near, that if no nearer it had been

      This furrow’d visage thou hadst never seen.

      “Young man of Latmos! thus particular

      Am I, that thou may’st plainly see how far

      This fierce temptation went: and thou may’st not

      Exclaim, How then, was Scylla quite forgot?

      “Who could resist? Who in this universe?

      She did so breathe ambrosia; so immerse

      My fine existence in a golden clime.

      She took me like a child of suckling time,

      And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn’d,

      The current of my former life was stemm’d,

      And to this arbitrary queen of sense

      I bow’d a tranced vassal: nor would thence

      Have mov’d, even though Amphion’s harp had woo’d

      Me back to Scylla o’er the billows rude.

      For as Apollo each eve doth devise

      A new appareling for western skies;

      So every eve, nay every spendthrift hour

      Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.

      And I was free of haunts umbrageous;

      Could wander in the mazy forest-house

      Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler’d deer,

      And birds from coverts innermost and drear

      Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow–

      To me new born delights!

      “Now let me borrow,

      For moments few, a temperament as stern

      As Pluto’s sceptre, that my words not burn

      These uttering lips, while I in calm speech tell

      How specious heaven was changed to real hell.

      “One morn she left me sleeping: half awake

      I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake

      My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts;

      But she was gone. Whereat the barbed shafts

      Of disappointment stuck in me so sore,

      That out I ran and search’d the forest o’er.

      Wandering about in pine and cedar gloom

      Damp awe assail’d me; for there ‘gan to boom

      A sound of moan, an agony of sound,

      Sepulchral from the distance all around.

      Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and rumbled

      That fierce complain to silence: while I stumbled

      Down a precipitous path, as if impell’d.

      I came to a dark valley.–Groanings swell’d

      Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew,

      The nearer I approach’d a flame’s gaunt blue,

      That glar’d before me through a thorny brake.

      This fire, like the eye of gordian snake,

      Bewitch’d me towards; and I soon was near

      A sight too fearful for the feel of fear:

      In thicket hid I curs’d the haggard scene–

      The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,

      Seated upon an uptorn forest root;

      And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,

      Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting,

      Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting!

      O such deformities! Old Charon’s self,

      Should he give up awhile his penny pelf,

      And take a dream ‘mong rushes Stygian,

      It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan,

      And tyrannizing was the lady’s look,

      As over them a gnarled staff she shook.

      Ofttimes upon the sudden she laugh’d out,

      And from a basket emptied to the rout

      Clusters of grapes, the which they raven’d quick

      And roar’d for more; with many a hungry lick

      About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow,

      Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,

      And emptied on’t a black dull-gurgling phial:

      Groan’d one and all, as if some piercing trial

      Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.

      She lifted up the charm: appealing groans

      From their poor breasts went sueing to her ear

      In vain; remorseless as an infant’s bier

      She whisk’d against their eyes the sooty oil.

      Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil,

      Increasing gradual to a tempest rage,

      Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-pilgrimage;

      Until their grieved bodies ‘gan to bloat

      And puff from the tail’s end to stifled throat:

      Then was appalling silence: then a sight

      More wildering than all that hoarse affright;

      For