VII.

Her madness was a beam of light, a power

Which dawned thro' the rent soul; and words it gave
Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore

Which might not be withstood, whence none could save
All who approached their sphere, like some calm wave.
Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;
And sympathy made each attendant slave

Fearless and free, and they began to breathe
Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.

VIII.

The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:
At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,
One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown
From human shape into an instrument

Of all things ill-distorted, bowed and bent.
The other was a wretch from infancy

Made dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant
But to obey: from the fire-isles came he,

A diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral sea.

IX.

They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke
Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,
Until upon their path the morning broke;
They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze,
The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades

Shakes with the sleepless surge;-the Ethiop there
Wound his long arms around her, and with knees
Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her
Among the closing waves out of the boundless air.

X.

"Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain Of morning light, into some shadowy wood, He plunged thro' the green silence of the main, Thro' many a cavern which the eternal flood Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood; And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder, And among mightier shadows which pursued His heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under He touched a golden chain-a sound arose like thunder.

VOL. I.

K

1

XI.

"A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling
Beneath the deep-a burst of waters driven
As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:
And in that roof of crags a space was riven

Thro' which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,
Shot thro' the lines of many waves inwoven,
Like sunlight thro' acacia woods at even,

Thro' which, his way the diver having cloven,
Past like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.

XII.

"And then," she said, "he laid me in a cave
Above the waters, by that chasm of sea,
A fountain round and vast, in which the wave
Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,
Down which, one moment resting, he did flee,
Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell
Like an hupaithric temple wide and high,
Whose aëry dome is inaccessible,

Was pierced with one round cleft thro' which the sun-beams fell.

XIII.

Below, the fountain's brink was richly paven With the deep's wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven With mystic legends by no mortal hand,

Left there, when thronging to the moon's command, The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.

XIV.

"The fiend of madness, which had made its prey Of my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile: There was an interval of many a day,

And a sea-eagle brought me food the while, Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle, And who, to be the jailor had been taught, Of that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile Like light and rest at morn and even is sought, That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought.

XV.

"The misery of a madness slow and creeping,

Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,
And the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping,
In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,

Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there;
And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore
Thy mangled limbs for food!-thus all things were
Transformed into the agony which I wore

Even as a poisoned robe around my bosom's core.

XVI.

"Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing,
The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;
Another frenzy came-there seemed a being
Within me a strange load my heart did bear,
As if some living thing had made its lair
Even in the fountains of my life:- -a long
And wondrous vision wrought from my despair,
Then grew, like sweet reality among
Dim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.

XVII.

"Methought I was about to be a mother-
Month after month went by, and still I dreamed
That we should soon be all to one another,
I and my child; and still new pulses seemed
To beat beside my heart, and still I deemed
There was a babe within—and when the rain
Of winter thro' the rifted cavern streamed,
Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,

I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.

XVIII.

"It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,

It was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine,
Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earth

It laid its fingers, as now rest on mine
Thine own beloved:-'twas a dream divine;
Even to remember how it fled, how swift,
How utterly, might make the heart repine,-
Tho' 'twas a dream."-Then Cythna did uplift

Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:

XIX.

A doubt which would not flee, a tenderness
Of questioning grief, a source of thronging tears;
Which, having past, as one whom sobs oppress,
She spoke: "Yes, in the wilderness of years
Her memory, aye, like a green home appears,
She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,
For many months. I had no mortal fears;
Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,-
It was a human thing which to my bosom clove.

XX.

"I watched the dawn of her first smiles, and soon
When zenith-stars were trembling on the wave,
Or when the beams of the invisible moon,
Or sun, from many a prism within the cave
Their gem-born shadows to the water gave,

Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand, From the swift lights which might that fountain pave, She would mark one, and laugh, when that command Slighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.

XXI.

"Methought her looks began to talk with me; And no articulate sounds, but something sweet Her lips would frame,-so sweet, it could not be That it was meaningless; her touch would meet Mine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat In response while we slept; and on a day When I was happiest in that strange retreat, With heaps of golden shells we two did play,Both infants, weaving wings for time's perpetual way.

XXII.

"Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown
Weary with joy, and tired with our delight,
We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down
On one fair mother's bosom :-from that night
She fled;-like those illusions clear and bright,
Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high
Pause ere it wakens tempest;-and her flight,
Tho' 'twas the death of brainless phantasy,

Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.

XXIII.

"It seemed that in the dreary night, the diver
Who brought me thither, came again, and bore
My child away. I saw the waters quiver,
When he so swiftly sunk, as once before:
Then morning came-it shone even as of yore,
But I was changed-the very life was gone
Out of my heart-I wasted more and more,
Day after day, and sitting there alone,

Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

XXIV.

"I was no longer mad, and yet methought

My breasts were swoln and changed:-in every vein The blood stood still one moment, while that thought Was passing-with a gush of sickening pain It ebbed even to its withered springs again: When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned From that most strange delusion, which would fain Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned With more than human love, then left it unreturned. XXV.

"So now my reason was restored to me,

I struggled with that dream, which, like a beast
Most fierce and beauteous, in my memory
Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast;
But all that cave and all its shapes possest

By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one
Some smile, some look, some gesture which had blest
Me heretofore: I, sitting there alone,

Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

XXVI.

"Time past, I know not whether months or years; For day, nor night, nor change of seasons made Its note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:

And I became at last even as a shade,

A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed, Till it be thin as air; until, one even,

A Nautilus upon the fountain played,

Spreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.