And a heaven where yet heaven could | Which pierce the sense, and live within We encircle the ocean and mountains of And the happy forms of its death and birth Chorus of Hours and Spirits. The clouds that are heavy with love's Ha! they are gone! Panthea. Panthea. As the bare green hill water To the unpavilioned sky! Ione. New notes arise. sound? Even whilst we speak In which the mother of the months is borne By ebbing night into her western cave, When she upsprings from interlunar dreams, O'er which is curved an orblike canopy Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil, Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass; What is that awful Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, Such as the genii of the thunderstorm Pile on the floor of the illumined sea When the sun rushes under it; they roll And move and grow as with an inward wind; Within it sits a wingèd infant, white Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, Its limbs gleam white, through the windflowing folds Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl. Its hair is white, the brightness of white light Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl Over each other with a thousand motions, Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, And with the force of self-destroying swiftness, Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, Intelligible words and music wild. With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb Scattered in strings; yet its two eyes Grinds the bright brook into an azure are heavens Of liquid darkness, which the Deity Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, Tempering the cold and radiant air around, mist Of elemental subtlety, like light; Seem kneaded into one aërial mass With fire that is not brightness; in its Which drowns the sense. Within the Over its wheeled clouds, which as they The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, roll Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. And you can see its little lips are moving, Amid the changing light of their own smiles, Panthea. And from the other open- Like one who talks of what he loves Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass Like swords of azure fire, or golden Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings, And serpents, bony chains, twisted And perpendicular now, and now trans verse, Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass, Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart; Infinite mine of adamant and gold, Valueless stones, and unimagined gems, And caverns on crystalline columns poised With vegetable silver overspread; around The iron crags, or within heaps of dust To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs Had crushed the iron crags; and over these The jagged alligator, and the might once Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, Wells of unfathomed fire, and water | And weed-overgrown continents of earth, Increased and multiplied like summer springs Whence the great sea, even as a child worms On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe Wrapt deluge round it like a cloke, and they Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried, Planks turned to marble; quivers, helms, Be not! and spears, And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, And like my words they were no more. The Earth. The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness! The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, Round which death laughed, sepulchred The vaporous exultation not to be con This true fair world of things, a sea A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey, reflecting love; Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, Darting from starry depths radiance and Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left, Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is poured; Then when it wanders home with rosy smile, Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm, Forcing life's wildest shores to own its All things confess his strength. Of marble and of colour his dreams Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear; Language is a perpetual orphic song, Which rules with Dædal harmony a throng Unconscious, and its mother fears Of thoughts and forms, which else sense awhile control, Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea; Familiar acts are beautiful through love; Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be! His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, less and shapeless were. The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, And selfish cares, its trembling And crystalline, till it becomes a winged satellites, mist, |