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XXIV.

The sense of day and night, of false and true,
Was dead within me. Yet two visions burst
That darkness-one, as since that hour I knew,
Was not a phantom of the realms accurst,
Where then my spirit dwelt-but of the first
I know not yet, was it a dream or no.

But both, tho' not distincter, were immersed

In hues which, when thro' memory's waste they flow, Make their divided streams more bright and rapid now.

XXV.

Methought that gate was lifted, and the seven
Who brought me thither, four stiff corpses bare,
And from the frieze to the four winds of Heaven
Hung them on high by the entangled hair:
Swarthy were three-the fourth was very fair:
As they retired, the golden moon upsprung,
And eagerly, out in the giddy air,

Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.

XXVI.

A woman's shape, now lank and cold and blue,
The dwelling of the many-coloured worm
Hung there, the white and hollow cheek I drew
To my dry lips-what radiance did inform

Those horny eyes? whose was that withered form?
Alas, alas! it seemed that Cythna's ghost

Laughed in those looks, and that the flesh was warn
Within my teeth!—a whirlwind keen as frost
Then in its sinking gulphs my sickening spirit tost.

XXVII.

Then seemed it that a tameless hurricane

Arose, and bore me in its dark career

Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane

On the verge of formless space-it languished there,
And dying, left a silence lone and drear,
More horrible than famine:-in the deep
The shape of an old man did then appear,
Stately and beautiful, that dreadful sleep

His heavenly smiles dispersed, and I could wake and weep.

XXVIII.

And when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw
That column, and those corpses, and the moon,
And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw
My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon.

Of senseless death would be accorded soon;-
When from that stony gloom a voice arose,
Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune
The midnight pines; the grate did then unclose,
And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose.

XXIX.

He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled:
As they were loosened by that Hermit old,
Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled,
To answer those kind looks-he did infold

His giant arms around me, to uphold

My wretched frame, my scorchèd limbs he wound.

In linen moist and balmy, and as cold

As dew to drooping leaves;-the chain, with sound Like earthquake, thro' the chasm of that steep stair did bound,

XXX.

As lifting me, it fell!-What next I heard,

Were billows leaping on the harbour bar,

And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred
My hair;-I looked abroad, and saw a star

Shining beside a sail, and distant far

That mountain and its column, the known mark
Of those who in the wide deep wandering are,
So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark,
In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.
XXXI.

For now indeed, over the salt sea billow
I sailed: yet dared not look upon the shape
Of him who ruled the helm, altho' the pillow
For my light head was hollowed in his lap,
And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap,
Fearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent
O'er me his agèd face, as if to snap

Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent,
Aud to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.

XXXII.

A soft and healing potion to my lips
At intervals he raised-now looked on high,
To mark if yet the starry giant dips

His zone in the dim sea-now cheeringly,
Though he said little, did he speak to me.
"It is a friend beside thee-take good cheer,
Poor victim, thou art now at liberty!"

I joyed as those a human tone to hear,

Who in cells deep and lone have languished many a year.

XXXIII.

A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses oft

Were quenched in a relapse of wildering dreams,

Yet still methought we sailed, until aloft
The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams
Of morn descended on the ocean streams,
And still that agèd man, so grand and mild,
Tended me, even as some sick mother seems
To hang in hope over a dying child,

Till in the azure East darkness again was piled.

XXXIV.

And then the night-wind steaming from the shore,
Sent odours dying sweet across the sea,

And the swift boat the little waves which bore,
Were cut by its keen keel, tho' slantingly;
Soon I could hear the leaves sigh, and could see
The myrtle blossoms starring the dim grove,
As past the pebbly beach the boat did flee
On sidelong wing, into a silent cove,

Where ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove.

Canto Fourth.

I.

THE old man took the oars, and soon the bark Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone; It was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark With blooming ivy trails was overgrown; Upon whose floor the spangling sands were strown, And rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood, Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown Within the walls of that grey tower, which stood A changeling of man's art, nursed amid Nature's brood. .

II.

When the old man his boat had anchorèd,

He wound me in his arms with tender care,
And very few, but kindly words he said,
And bore me thro' the tower adown a stair,
Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear
For many a year had fallen-We came at last
To a small chamber, which with mosses rare
Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed
Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

III.

The moon was darting through the lattices Its yellow light, warm as the beams of daySo warm, that to admit the dewy breeze, The old man opened them; the moonlight lay Upon a lake whose waters wove their play Even to the threshold of that lonely home: Within was seen in the dim wavering ray, The antique sculptured roof, and many a tome Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become..

IV.

The rock-built barrier of the sea was past,— And I was on the margin of a lake, A lonely lake, amid the forests vast And snowy mountains:-did my spirit wake From sleep, as many-coloured as the snake That girds eternity? in life and truth, Might not my heart its cravings ever slake? Was Cythna then a dream, and all my youth, And all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?

V.

Thus madness came again, a milder madness,
Which darkened nought but time's unquiet flow
With supernatural shades of clinging sadness;
That gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe,
By my sick couch was busy to and fro,
Like a strong spirit ministrant of good:
When I was healed, he led me forth to shew
The wonders of his sylvan solitude,

And we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.

VI.

He knew his soothing words to weave with skill
From all my madness told; like mine own heart,
Of Cythna would he question me, until

That thrilling name had ceased to make me start,
From his familiar lips-it was not art,
Of wisdom and of justice when he spoke-
When mid soft looks of pity, there would dart
A glance as keen as is the lightning's stroke

When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

VII.

Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,
My thoughts their due array did re-assume
Thro' the inchantments of that Hermit old;
Then I bethought me of the glorious doom
Of those who sternly struggle to relume
The lamp of Hope o'er man's bewildered lot,
And, sitting by the waters, in the gloom

Of eve, to that friend's heart I told my thoughtThat heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.

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