youth, Around their inland islets, and amid The panther - peopled forests, whose shade cast Darkness and odours, and a pleasure In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past; 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 glow-worms 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 The countenance was such as might And ever as she went, the Image lay select Some artist that his skill should never die, Imaging forth such perfect purity. XXXVII With folded wings and unawakened eyes; And o'er its gentle countenance did play The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, From its smooth shoulders hung two Chasing the rapid smiles that would not rapid wings, Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere Beside the rudder, with opposing feet. XXXVIII And down the streams which clove those Now lingering on the pools, in which The calm and darkness of the deep With which frost paints the pines in Flinging a glory, like the golden glow Of shooting stars, and bade extend In which Spring clothes her emerald winged minions, All interwoven with fine feathery snow And moonlight splendour of intensest rime, amain Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Her maphrodite ; She to the Austral waters took her way, Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana. Where, like a meadow which no scythe On which that lady played her many has shaven, Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, With the Antarctic constellations paven, Canopus and his crew, lay the 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 pranks, And then she called out of the hollow turrets Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion, The tremulous stars sparkled un- The armies of her ministering spirits fathomably, And around which the solid vapours 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 She would ascend, and win the spirits Through lotus-paven canals, and where That on those days the sky was calm With tombs, and towers, and fanes, and fair, 'twas her delight And mystic snatches of harmonious To wander in the shadow of the night. Past through the peopled haunts of O'er its wild surface to an unknown 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, 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 Our course unpiloted and starless She saw the inner form most bright and make fair |
