Feelings that lure thee to betray,
And light of thoughts that pass away.

"For thou hast earned a mighty boon;
The truths, which wisest poets see
Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
Rewarding its own majesty,

Entranced in some diviner mood
Of self-oblivious solitude.

"Custom and Faith and Power thou spurnest;
From hate and awe thy heart is free;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
For dark and cold mortality

A living light, to cheer it long,
The watch-fires of the world among.

"Therefore from Nature's inner shrine, Where gods and fiends in worship bend, Majestic spirit, be it thine

The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
Where the vast snake Eternity
In charmed sleep doth ever lie.

"All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,
Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
Or think or feel, awake, arise!

Spirit, leave for mine and me

Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!"

It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame

A radiant spirit arose,

All beautiful in naked purity.

Robed in its human hues it did ascend,
Disparting as it went the silver clouds

It moved towards the car, and took its seat
Beside the Dæmon shape.

Obedient to the sweep of aëry song,
The mighty ministers

Unfurled their prismy wings.

The magic car moved on.

The night was fair

innumerable stars

Studded heaven's dark blue vault;
The eastern wave grew pale

With the first smile of morn.

The magic car moved on.

From the swift sweep of wings

The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew ;
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak
Was traced a line of lightning.

Now far above a rock, the utmost verge
Of the wide earth, it flew, -

The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o'er the silver sea.

Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous ocean lay.

Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The pale and waning stars,

The chariot's fiery track,
And the gray light of morn

Tingeing those fleecy clouds.

That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
The chariot seemed to fly

Through the abyss of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite color,

And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.

As they approached their goal,
The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
In the black concave of heaven

With the sun's cloudless orb,
Whose rays of rapid light

Parted around the chariot's swifter course,

And fell like ocean's feathery spray

Dashed from the boiling surge

Before a vessel's prow.

The magic car moved on.

Earth's distant orb appeared

The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems widely rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory.

It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,
And like the moon's argentine crescent hung
In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed
A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed

Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire, Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed Bedimmed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here,

In this interminable wilderness

Of worlds, at whose involved immensity

Even soaring fancy staggers,

Here is thy fitting temple!
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee;

Yet not the meanest worm,

That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature! thou,
Imperishable as this glorious scene,
Here is thy fitting temple!

If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the shore of the immeasurable sea,
And thou hast lingered there

Until the sun's broad orb

Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,

Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold That without motion hang

Over the sinking sphere;

Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,

Edged with intolerable radiancy,

Towering like rocks of jet

Above the burning deep;

And yet there is a moment,

When the sun's highest point

Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea;

Then has thy rapt imagination soared
Where in the midst of all existing things
The temple of the mightiest Dæmon stands.

Yet not the golden islands

That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,
Nor the feathery curtains

That canopy the sun's resplendent couch,
Nor the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,

So fair, so wonderful a sight
As the eternal temple could afford.
The elements of all that human thought
Can frame of lovely or sublime did join
To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
Of earth may image forth its majesty.
Yet likest evening's vault that faëry hall;
As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
Its floors of flashing light,

Its vast and azure dome;

And on the verge of that obscure abyss,
Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulf
Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
Their lustre through its adamantine gates.

The magic car no longer moved.
The Dæmon and the Spirit
Entered the eternal gates.