Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse Hung like dead bone within its withered His eyes pursued its flight.—“ Thou hast a home, skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine shone As in a furnace burning secretly From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, Who ministered with human charity His human wants, beheld with wondering awe Their fleeting visitant. The moun taineer, Encountering on some dizzy precipice That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile In its career: the infant would conceal many a dream Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught By nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false names Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path Of his departure from their father's door. At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste For ing lips. sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure, With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. Startled by his own thoughts he looked around. There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. The waves arose. still Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Like serpents struggling in a vulture's Among the stars like sunlight, and grasp. Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves Bursting and eddying irresistibly Descending, and black flood on whirl- Rage and resound for ever.---Who shall blast pool driven save? The boat fled on,-the boiling torrent Seized by the sway of the ascending The little boat was driven. A cavern The waters overflow, and a smooth spot Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides Is left, the boat paused shuddering.— Shall it sink there Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths Ingulphed the rushing sea. fled on The boat Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress With unrelaxing speed. 'Vision and Of that resistless gulph embosom it? Love!' The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld The path of thy departure. Sleep and death Shall not divide us long!' The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone At length upon that gloomy river's flow; Now, where the fiercest war among the waves Is calm, on the unfathomable stream The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ; Now shall it fall?-A wandering stream of wind, Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail, And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark! The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar, With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. Where the embowering trees recede, and leave A little space of green expanse, the cove Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes, Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, Or falling spear-grass, or decay their own Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, giant arms longed In darkness over it. I' the midst was To deck with their bright hues his left, Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. withered hair, But on his heart its solitude returned, And he forebore. Not the strong im pulse hid In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and These twine their tendrils with the Now shone upon the forest, one vast As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mass mossy lawns Of mingling shade, whose brown mag- Beneath these canopies extend their nificence A narrow vale embosoms. caves, swells, There, huge Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Scooped in the dark base of their aëry Minute yet beautiful. rocks Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, A soul-dissolving odour, to invite The meeting boughs and implicated To some more lovely mystery. Through Fold their beams round the hearts of Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark Of that still fountain; as the human Then through the plain in tranquil heart, Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, wanderings crept, Reflecting every herb and drooping bud The motion of the leaves, the grass that Whither do thy mysterious waters tend? sprung Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel An unaccustomed presence, and the sound Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed To stand beside him-clothed in no bright robes Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, Borrowed from aught the visible world affords What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud Contains thy waters, as the universe Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ;-- speech assuming, Held commune with him, as if he and it shall waste Beside the grassy shore Were all that was,-only . . . when Of the small stream he went; he did his regard Was raised by intense pensiveness, two eyes, impress On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of Strong shuddering from his burning thought, limbs. As one And seemed with their serene and azure Roused by some joyous madness from Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now The forest's solemn canopies were changed it fell Among the moss with hollow harmony Dark and profound. Now on the For the uniform and lightsome evening It danced; like childhood laughing as Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed |