LITMIR.BIZ

      Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode

      Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine

      Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine

      For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale

      For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail

      His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?

      Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper’s eye,

      Or what a thing is love! ’Tis She, but lo!

      How chang’d, how full of ache, how gone in woe!

      She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness

      Is wan on Neptune’s blue: yet there’s a stress

      Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,

      Dancing upon the waves, as if to please

      The curly foam with amorous influence.

      O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence

      She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about

      O’erwhelming water-courses; scaring out

      The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright’ning

      Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.

      Where will the splendor be content to reach?

      O love! how potent hast thou been to teach

      Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,

      In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,

      In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,

      Thou pointest out the way, and straight ’tis won.

      Amid his toil thou gav’st Leander breath;

      Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;

      Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;

      And now, O winged Chieftain! them hast sent

      A moonbeam to the deep, deep water-world,

      On gold sand impearl’d

      With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,

      Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth’d her light

      Against his pallid face: he felt the charm

      To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm

      Of his heart’s blood: ’twas very sweet; he stay’d

      His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid

      His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,

      To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,

      Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes’ tails.

      And so he kept, until the rosy veils

      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

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