LITMIR.BIZ

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      The enchantment that afterwards befel?

      Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream

      That never tongue, although it overteem

      With mellow utterance, like a cavern spring,

      Could figure out and to conception bring

      All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay

      Watching the zenith, where the milky way

      Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;

      And travelling my eye, until the doors

      Of heaven appear’d to open for my flight,

      I became loth and fearful to alight

      From such high soaring by a downward glance:

      So kept me stedfast in that airy trance,

      Spreading imaginary pinions wide.

      When, presently, the stars began to glide,

      And faint away, before my eager view:

      At which I sigh’d that I could not pursue,

      And dropt my vision to the horizon’s verge;

      And lo! from opening clouds, I saw emerge

      The loveliest moon, that ever silver’d o’er

      A shell for Neptune’s goblet: she did soar

      So passionately bright, my dazzled soul

      Commingling with her argent spheres did roll

      Through clear and cloudy, even when she went

      At last into a dark and vapoury tent–

      Whereat, methought, the lidless-eyed train

      Of planets all were in the blue again.

      To commune with those orbs, once more I rais’d

      My sight right upward: but it was quite dazed

      By a bright something, sailing down apace,

      Making me quickly veil my eyes and face:

      Again I look’d, and, O ye deities,

      Who from Olympus watch our destinies!

      Whence that completed form of all completeness?

      Whence came that high perfection of all sweetness?

      Speak, stubborn earth, and tell me where, O where

      Hast thou a symbol of her golden hair?

      Not oat-sheaves drooping in the western sun;

      Not–thy soft hand, fair sister! let me shun

      Such follying before thee–yet she had,

      Indeed, locks bright enough to make me mad;

      And they were simply gordian’d up and braided,

      Leaving, in naked comeliness, unshaded,

      Her pearl round ears, white neck, and orbed brow;

      The which were blended in, I know not how,

      With such a paradise of lips and eyes,

      Blush-tinted cheeks, half smiles, and faintest sighs,

      That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings

      And plays about its fancy, till the stings

      Of human neighbourhood envenom all.

      Unto what awful power shall I call?

      To what high fane?–Ah! see her hovering feet,

      More bluely vein’d, more soft, more whitely sweet

      Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose

      From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows

      Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion;

      ’Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million

      Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed,

      Over the darkest, lushest bluebell bed,

      Handfuls of daisies.”–”Endymion, how strange!

      Dream within dream!”–”She took an airy range,

      And then, towards me, like a very maid,

      Came blushing, waning, willing, and afraid,

      And press’d me by the hand: Ah! ’twas too much;

      Methought I fainted at the charmed touch,

      Yet held my recollection, even as one

      Who dives three fathoms where the waters run

      Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon,

      I felt upmounted in that region

      Where falling stars dart their artillery forth,

      And eagles struggle with the buffeting north

      That balances the heavy meteor-stone;–

      Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone,

      But lapp’d and lull’d along the dangerous sky.

      Soon, as it seem’d, we left our journeying high,

      And straightway into frightful eddies swoop’d;

      Such as ay muster where grey time has scoop’d

      Huge dens and caverns in a mountain’s side:

      There hollow sounds arous’d me, and I sigh’d

      To faint once more by looking on my bliss–

      I was distracted; madly did I kiss

      The wooing arms which held me, and did give

      My eyes at once to death: but ’twas to live,

      To take in draughts of life from the gold fount

      Of kind and passionate looks; to count, and count

      The moments, by some greedy help that seem’d

      A second self, that each might be redeem’d

      And plunder’d of its load of blessedness.

      Ah, desperate mortal! I ev’n dar’d to press

      Her very cheek against my crowned lip,

      And, at that moment, felt my body dip

      Into a warmer air: a moment more,

      Our feet were soft in flowers. There was store

      Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes

      A scent of violets, and blossoming limes,

      Loiter’d around us; then of honey cells,

      Made delicate from all white-flower bells;

      And once, above the edges of our nest,

      An arch face peep’d,–an Oread as I guess’d.