The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Julian and Maddalo; a Conversation.
• The Witch of Atlas.
• Letter to —
• The Triumph of Life.
• Fragments From an Unfinished Drama.
• Prince Athanase: a Fragment.
• Ode to Naples. *
• Marianne’s Dream.
• Mont Blanc. Lines Written In the Vale of Chamouni.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci, In the Florentine Gallery.
• Song.
• To Constantia, Singing.
• The Fugitives.
• A Lament.
• The Pine Forest of the Cascine, Near Pisa.
• To Night.
• Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.
• Arethusa.
• The Question.
• Lines to an Indian Air.
• Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.
• Autumn: a Dirge.
• Hymn of Apollo.
• Hymn of Pan.
• The Boat On the Serchio.
• The Zucca. *
• The Two Spirits. an Allegory.
• A Fragment.
• A Bridal Song.
• The Sunset.
• Song, On a Faded Violet.
• Lines to a Critic.
• Good Night.
• To-morrow.
• Death.
• A Lament.
• Love’s Philosophy.
• To E*** V***
• To —
• Lines.
• To William Shelley.
• An Allegory.
• Mutability.
• From the Arabic. an Imitation.
• To —
• Music.
• Lines.
• Death.
• To —
• Passage of the Apennines.
• To Mary —
• The Past.
• Song of a Spirit.
• Liberty.
• To —
• The Isle.
• To —
• Time.
• Lines.
• A Song.
• The World’s Wanderers.
• A Dirge.
• Lines.
• Dirge For the Year.
• Sonnet I.
• Sonnet II. Political Greatness.
• Sonnet III.
• Sonnet IV.
• Fragments.
• Ginevra. *
• Charles the First. Fragments.
• Prince Athanase. Part II.
• Mazenghi. *
• The Woodman and the Nightingale.
• To the Moon.
• Song For Tasso.
• The Waning Moon.
• Epitaph.
• Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude.
• Translations.
• Hymn to Mercury. Translated From the Greek of Homer
• The Cyclops; a Satyric Drama.
• Translation From Moschus.
• Scenes From the “magico Prodigioso” of Calderon.
• Scenes From the Faust of GoËthe.

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

• • I.

  • Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
  • Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
  • Error and Truth, bad hunted from the earth
  • All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
  • And left us nothing to believe in, worth
  • The pains of putting into learned rhyme,
  • A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain
  • Within a cavern by a secret fountain.

• • II.

  • Her mother was one of the Atlantides:
  • The all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden
  • In his wide voyage o’er continents and seas
  • So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden
  • In the warm shadow of her loveliness;—
  • He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden
  • The chamber of grey rock in which she lay—
  • She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

• • III.

  • ’Tis said, she was first changed into a vapour,
  • And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
  • Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,
  • Round the red west when the sun dies in it:
  • And then into a meteor, such as caper
  • On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit;
  • Then, into one of those mysterious stars
  • Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

• • IV.

  • Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent
  • Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden
  • With that bright sign the billows to indent
  • The sea-deserted sand: like children chidden,
  • At her command they ever came and went:—
  • Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden,
  • Took shape and motion: with the living form
  • Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.

• • V.

  • A lovely lady garmented in light
  • From her own beauty—deep her eyes, as are
  • Two openings of unfathomable night
  • Seen through a tempest’s cloven roof—her hair
  • Dark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight,
  • Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,
  • And her low voice was heard like love, and drew
  • All living things towards this wonder new.

• • VI.

  • And first the spotted cameleopard came,
  • And then the wise and fearless elephant;
  • Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame
  • Of his own volumes intervolved;—all gaunt
  • And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.
  • They drank before her at her sacred fount;
  • And every beast of beating heart grew bold,
  • Such gentleness and power even to behold.

• • VII.

  • The brinded lioness led forth her young,
  • That she might teach them how they should forego
  • Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
  • His sinews at her feet, and sought to know
  • With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue
  • How he might be as gentle as the doe.
  • The magic circle of her voice and eyes
  • All savage natures did imparadise.

• • VIII.

  • And old Silenus, shaking a green stick
  • Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew
  • Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick
  • Cicadæ are, drunk with the noonday dew:
  • And Driope and Faunus followed quick,
  • Teazing the God to sing them something new,
  • Till in this cave they found the lady lone,
  • Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

• • IX.

  • And Universal Pan, ’tis said, was there,
  • And though none saw him,—through the adamant
  • Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,
  • And through those living spirits, like a want
  • He past out of his everlasting lair
  • Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,
  • And felt that wondrous lady all alone,—
  • And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

• • X.

  • And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,
  • And every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks,
  • Who drives her white waves over the green sea;
  • And Ocean, with the brine on his grey locks,
  • And quaint Priapus with his company
  • All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks
  • Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—
  • Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

• • XI.

  • The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,
  • And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant—
  • These spirits shook within them, as a flame
  • Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:
  • Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,
  • Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt
  • Wet clefts,—and lumps neither alive nor dead,
  • Dog-headed, bosom-eyed and bird-footed.

• • XII.

  • For she was beautiful: her beauty made
  • The bright world dim, and every thing beside
  • Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
  • No thought of living spirit could abide,
  • Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,
  • On any object in the world so wide,
  • On any hope within the circling skies,
  • But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

• • XIII.

  • Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle
  • And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three
  • Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle
  • The clouds and waves and mountains with, and she
  • As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle
  • In the belated moon, wound skilfully;
  • And with these threads a subtle veil she wove—
  • A shadow for the splendour of her love.

• • XIV.

  • The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling
  • Were stored with magic treasures—sounds of air,
  • Which had the power all spirits of compelling,
  • Folded in cells of chrystal silence there;
  • Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling
  • Will never die—yet ere we are aware,
  • The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,
  • And the regret they leave remains alone.

• • XV.

  • And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,
  • Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis;
  • Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint
  • With the soft burthen of intensest bliss;
  • It is its work to bear to many a saint
  • Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,
  • Even Love’s—and others white, green, grey and black,
  • And of all shapes—and each was at her beck.

• • XVI.

  • And odours in a kind of aviary
  • Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,
  • Clipt in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy
  • Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;
  • As bats at the wired window of a dairy,
  • They beat their vans; and each was an adept,
  • When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,
  • To stir sweet thoughts or sad in destined minds.

• • XVII.

  • And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might
  • Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,
  • And change eternal death into a night
  • Of glorious dreams—or if eyes needs must weep,
  • Could make their tears all wonder and delight,
  • She in her chrystal vials did closely keep:
  • If men could drink of those clear vials, ’tis said
  • The living were not envied of the dead.

• • XVIII.

  • Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,
  • The works of some Saturnian Archimage,
  • Which taught the expiations at whose price
  • Men from the Gods might win that happy age
  • Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;
  • And which might quench the earth-consuming rage
  • Of gold and blood—till men should live and move
  • Harmonious as the sacred stars above.

• • XIX.

  • And how all things that seem untameable,
  • Not to be checked and not to be confined,
  • Obey the spells of wisdom’s wizard skill;
  • Time, Earth and Fire—the Ocean and the Wind,
  • And all their shapes—and man’s imperial will;
  • And other scrolls whose writings did unbind
  • The inmost lore of Love—let the prophane
  • Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.

• • XX.

  • And wondrous works of substances unknown,
  • To which the enchantment of her father’s power
  • Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,
  • Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;
  • Carved lamps and chalices, and phials which shone
  • In their own golden beams—each like a flower,
  • Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light
  • Under a cypress in a starless night.

• • XXI.

  • At first she lived alone in this wild home,
  • And her own thoughts were each a minister,
  • Clothing themselves or with the ocean-foam,
  • Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
  • To work whatever purposes might come
  • Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire
  • Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,
  • Through all the regions which he shines upon.

• • XXII.

  • The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,
  • Oreads and Naiads with long weedy locks,
  • Offered to do her bidding through the seas,
  • Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,
  • And far beneath the matted roots of trees,
  • And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,
  • So they might live forever in the light
  • Of her sweet presence—each a satellite.

• • XXIII.

  • “This may not be,” the wizard maid replied;
  • “The fountains where the Naiades bedew
  • Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;
  • The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew
  • Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;
  • The boundless ocean, like a drop of dew
  • Will be consumed—the stubborn centre must
  • Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.

• • XXIV.

  • “And ye with them will perish one by one:
  • If I must sigh to think that this shall be,
  • If I must weep when the surviving Sun
  • Shall smile on your decay—Oh, ask not me
  • To love you till your little race is run;
  • I cannot die as ye must—over me
  • Your leaves shall glance—the streams in which ye dwell
  • Shall be my paths henceforth, and so, farewell!”

• • XXV.

  • She spoke and wept: the dark and azure well
  • Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,
  • And every little circlet where they fell,
  • Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres
  • And intertangled lines of light:—a knell
  • Of sobbing voices came upon her ears
  • From those departing Forms, o’er the serene
  • Of the white streams and of the forest green.

• • XXVI.

  • All day the wizard lady sat aloof
  • Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity
  • Under the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;
  • Or broidering the pictured poesy
  • Of some high tale upon her growing woof,
  • Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye
  • In hues outshining heaven—and ever she
  • Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

• • XXVII.

  • While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece
  • Of sandal wood, rare gums and cinnamon;
  • Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is,
  • Each flame of it is as a precious stone
  • Dissolved in ever moving light, and this
  • Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
  • The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
  • She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

• • XXVIII.

  • This lady never slept, but lay in trance
  • All night within the fountain—as in sleep.
  • Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance:
  • Through the green splendour of the water deep
  • She saw the constellations reel and dance
  • Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep
  • The tenour of her contemplations calm,
  • With open eyes, closed feet and folded palm.

• • XXIX.

  • And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
  • From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
  • She past at dewfall to a space extended,
  • Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
  • Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
  • There yawned an inextinguishable well
  • Of crimson fire, full even to the brim
  • And overflowing all the margin trim.

• • XXX.

  • Within the which she lay when the fierce war
  • Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
  • In many a mimic moon and bearded star,
  • O’er woods and lawns—the serpent heard it flicker
  • In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar—
  • And when the windless snow descended thicker
  • Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
  • Melt on the surface of the level flame.

• • XXXI.

  • She had a Boat which some say Vulcan wrought
  • For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
  • But it was found too feeble to be fraught
  • With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
  • And so she sold it, and Apollo bought,
  • And gave it to this daughter: from a car
  • Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
  • Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

• • XXXII.

  • And others say, that when but three hours old,
  • The first-born Love out of his cradle leapt,
  • And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
  • And like an horticultural adept,
  • Stole a strange seed, and wrapt it up in mould,
  • And sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept
  • Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
  • And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

• • XXXIII.

  • The plant grew strong and green—the snowy flower
  • Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began
  • To turn the light and dew by inward power
  • To its own substance; woven tracery ran
  • Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er
  • The solid rind, like a leaf’s veined fan,
  • Of which Love scooped this boat, and with soft motion
  • Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

• • XXXIV.

  • This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
  • A living spirit within all its frame,
  • Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.
  • Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,
  • One of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit;
  • Or as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame,
  • Or on blind Homer’s heart a winged thought,—
  • In joyous expectation lay the boat.

• • XXXV.

  • Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
  • Together, tempering the repugnant mass
  • With liquid love—all things together grow
  • Through which the harmony of love can pass;
  • And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow
  • A living Image, which did far surpass
  • In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
  • Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

• • XXXVI.

  • A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
  • It seemed to have developed no defect
  • Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,—
  • In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;
  • The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
  • The countenance was such as might select
  • Some artist that his skill should never die,
  • Imaging forth such perfect purity.

• • XXXVII.

  • From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
  • Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
  • Tipt with the speed of liquid lightnings,
  • Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:
  • She led her creature to the boiling springs
  • Where the light boat was moored,—and said—“Sit here!”
  • And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
  • Beside the rudder with opposing feet.

• • XXXVIII.

  • And down the streams which clove those mountains vast
  • Around their inland islets, and amid
  • The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast
  • Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
  • In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past;
  • By many a star-surrounded pyramid
  • Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
  • And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

• • XXXIX.

  • The silver noon into that winding dell,
  • With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
  • Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
  • A green and glowing light, like that which drops
  • From folded lilies in which glowworms dwell,
  • When earth over her face night’s mantle wraps;
  • Between the severed mountains lay on high
  • Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

• • XL.

  • And ever as she went, the Image lay
  • With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
  • And o’er its gentle countenance did play
  • The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
  • Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
  • And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
  • Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
  • They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

• • XLI.

  • And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
  • Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
  • Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
  • The calm and darkness of the deep content
  • In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road
  • Of white and dancing waters all besprent
  • With sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat
  • In such a shallow rapid could not float.

• • XLII.

  • And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
  • Their snow-like waters into golden air,
  • Or under chasms unfathomable ever
  • Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
  • A subterranean portal for the river,
  • It fled—the circling sunbows did upbear
  • Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
  • Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

• • XLIII.

  • And when the wizard lady would ascend
  • The labyrinths of some many winding vale,
  • Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—
  • She called “Hermaphroditus!” and the pale
  • And heavy hue which slumber could extend
  • Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale
  • A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,
  • Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

• • XLIV.

  • And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
  • With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
  • And from above into the Sun’s dominions
  • Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
  • In which spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,
  • All interwoven with fine feathery snow
  • And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
  • With which frost paints the pines in winter time.

• • XLV.

  • And then it winnowed the Elysian air
  • Which ever hung about that lady bright,
  • With its ethereal vans—and speeding there,
  • Like a star up the torrent of the night,
  • Or a swift eagle in the morning glare
  • Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight;
  • The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
  • Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

• • XLVI.

  • The water flashed like sunlight, by the prow
  • Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;
  • The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
  • In tempest down the mountains,—loosely driven
  • The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:
  • Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
  • Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
  • The swift and steady motion of the keel.

• • XLVII.

  • Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
  • Or in the noon of interlunar night,
  • The lady-witch in visions could not chain
  • Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
  • Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
  • His storm-outspeeding wings, th’ Hermaphrodite;
  • She to the Austral waters took her way,
  • Beyond the fabulous Thamondocona.

• • XLVIII.

  • Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,
  • Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake
  • With the Antarctic constellations haven,
  • Canopus and his crew, lay th’ Austral lake—
  • There she would build herself a windless haven
  • Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make
  • The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
  • The spirits of the tempest thundered by.

• • XLIX.

  • A haven, beneath whose translucent floor
  • The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
  • And around which, the solid vapours hoar,
  • Based on the level waters, to the sky
  • Lifted their dreadful crags; and like a shore
  • Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
  • Hemmed in with rifts and precipices grey,
  • And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

• • L.

  • And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
  • Of the winds’ scourge, foamed like a wounded thing;
  • And the incessant hail with stony clash
  • Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
  • Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash
  • Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
  • Fragment of inky thundersmoke—this haven
  • Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven.

• • LI.

  • On which that lady played her many pranks,
  • Circling the image of a shooting star,
  • Even as a tyger on Hydaspes’ banks
  • Outspeeds the Antelopes which speediest are,
  • In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
  • She played upon the water; till the car
  • Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
  • To journey from the misty east began.

• • LII.

  • And then she called out of the hollow turrets
  • Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
  • The armies of her ministering spirits—
  • In mighty legions million after million
  • They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
  • On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion,
  • Of the intertexture of the atmosphere,
  • They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

• • LIII.

  • They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
  • Of woven exhalations, underlaid
  • With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
  • A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
  • With crimson silk—cressets from the serene
  • Hung there, and on the water for her tread,
  • A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
  • Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

• • LIV.

  • And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
  • Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,
  • Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
  • She sate, and heard all that had happened new
  • Between the earth and moon since they had brought
  • The last intelligence—and now she grew
  • Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night—
  • And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.

• • LV.

  • These were tame pleasures.—She would often climb
  • The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
  • Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,
  • And like Arion on the dolphin’s back
  • Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft time
  • Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
  • She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
  • And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

• • LVI.

  • And sometimes to those streams of upper air,
  • Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
  • She would ascend, and win the spirits there
  • To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
  • That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
  • And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
  • Wandered upon the earth where’er she past,
  • And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

• • LVII.

  • But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
  • To glide adown old Nilus, when he threads
  • Egypt and Æthiopia, from the steep
  • Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,
  • Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,
  • His waters on the plain: and crested heads
  • Of cities and proud temples gleam amid
  • And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

• • LVIII.

  • By Mæris and the Mareotid lakes,
  • Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors;
  • Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
  • Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
  • Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
  • Of those huge forms:—within the brazen doors
  • Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
  • Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

• • LIX.

  • And where within the surface of the river
  • The shadows of the massy temples lie,
  • And never are erased—but tremble ever
  • Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
  • Through lotus-pav’n canals, and wheresoever
  • The works of man pierced that serenest sky
  • With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight
  • To wander in the shadow of the night.

• • LX.

  • With motion like the spirit of that wind
  • Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
  • Past through the peopled haunts of human kind,
  • Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
  • Through fane and palace-court and labyrinth mined
  • With many a dark and subterranean street
  • Under the Nile; through chambers high and deep
  • She past, observing mortals in their sleep.

• • LXI.

  • A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
  • Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.
  • Here lay two sister-twins in infancy;
  • There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
  • Within, two lovers linked innocently
  • In their loose locks which over both did creep
  • Like ivy from one stem;—and there lay calm,
  • Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

• • LXII.

  • But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
  • Not to be mirrored in a holy song,
  • Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
  • And pale imaginings of visioned wrong,
  • And all the code of custom’s lawless law
  • Written upon the brows of old and young:
  • “This,” said the wizard maiden, “is the strife,
  • Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.”

• • LXIII.

  • And little did the sight disturb her soul—
  • We, the weak mariners of that wide lake
  • Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,
  • Our course unpiloted and starless make
  • O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal—
  • But she in the calm depths her way could take,
  • Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide,
  • Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.

• • LXIV.

  • And she saw princes couched under the glow
  • Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court
  • In dormitories ranged, row after row,
  • She saw the priests asleep,—all of one sort,
  • For all were educated to be so.—
  • The peasants in their huts, and in the port
  • The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,
  • And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.

• • LXV.

  • And all the forms in which those spirits lay,
  • Were to her sight like the diaphanous
  • Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array
  • Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us
  • Only their scorn of all concealment: they
  • Move in the light of their own beauty thus.
  • But these, and all now lay with sleep upon them,
  • And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

• • LXVI.

  • She all those human figures breathing there
  • Beheld as living spirits—to her eyes
  • The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,
  • And often through a rude and worn disguise
  • She saw the inner form most bright and fair—
  • And then,—she had a charm of strange device,
  • Which murmured on mute lips with tender tone,
  • Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

• • LXVII.

  • Alas, Aurora! what wouldst thou have given
  • For such a charm, when Tithon became grey?
  • Or how much, Venus, of thy silver Heaven
  • Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina
  • Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven
  • Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,
  • To any witch who would have taught you it?
  • The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

• • LXVIII.

  • ’Tis said in after times her spirit free
  • Knew what love was, and felt itself alone—
  • But holy Dian could not chaster be
  • Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,
  • Than now this lady—like a sexless bee
  • Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none—
  • Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden
  • Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

• • LXIX.

  • To those she saw most beautiful, she gave
  • Strange panacea in a chrystal bowl.
  • They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,
  • And lived thenceforth as if some controul
  • Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave
  • Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,
  • Was as a green and overarching bower
  • Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.

• • LXX.

  • For on the night that they were buried, she
  • Restored the embalmers ruining, and shook
  • The light out of the funeral lamps, to be
  • A mimic day within that deathy nook;
  • And she unwound the woven imagery
  • Of second childhood’s swaddling bands, and took
  • The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,
  • And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

• • LXXI.

  • And there the body lay, age after age,
  • Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying
  • Like one asleep in a green hermitage,
  • With gentle sleep about its eyelids playing,
  • And living in its dreams beyond the rage
  • Of death or life; while they were still arraying
  • In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind
  • And fleeting generations of mankind.

• • LXXII.

  • And she would write strange dreams upon the brain
  • Of those who were less beautiful, and make
  • All harsh and crooked purposes more vain
  • Than in the desart is the serpent’s wake
  • Which the sand covers,—all his evil gain
  • The miser in such dreams would rise and shake
  • Into a beggar’s lap;—the lying scribe
  • Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

• • LXXIII.

  • The priests would write an explanation full,
  • Translating hieroglyphies into Greek,
  • How the god Apis, really was a bull,
  • And nothing more; and bid the herald stick
  • The same against the temple doors, and pull
  • The old cant down; they licensed all to speak
  • Whate’er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,
  • By pastoral letters to each diocese.

• • LXXIV.

  • The king would dress an ape up in his crown
  • And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,
  • And on the right hand of the sunlike throne
  • Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat
  • The chatterings of the monkey.—Every one
  • Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet
  • Of their great Emperor when the morning came;
  • And kissed—alas, how many kiss the same!

• • LXXV.

  • The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and
  • Walked out of quarters in somnambulism,
  • Round the red anvils you might see them stand
  • Like Cyclopses in Vulcan’s sooty abysm,
  • Beating their swords to ploughshares;—in a band
  • The jailors sent those of the liberal schism
  • Free through the streets of Memphis; much, I wis,
  • To the annoyance of king Amasis.

• • LXXVI.

  • And timid lovers who had been so coy,
  • They hardly knew whether they loved or not,
  • Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,
  • To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;
  • And when next day the maiden and the boy
  • Met one another, both, like sinners caught,
  • Blushed at the thing which each believed was done
  • Only in fancy—till the tenth moon shone;

• • LXXVII.

  • And then the Witch would let them take no ill:
  • Of many thousand schemes which lovers find
  • The Witch found one,—and so they took their fill
  • Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.
  • Friends who by practice of some envious skill,
  • Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind!
  • She did unite again with visions clear
  • Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

• • LXXVIII.

  • These were the pranks she played among the cities
  • Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites
  • And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties
  • To do her will, and shew their subtle slights,
  • I will declare another time; for it is
  • A tale more fit for the weïrd winter nights—
  • Than for these garish summer days, when we
  • Scarcely believe much more than we can see.