Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread,
It wakes a life in the forgotten dead,

They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers.

And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison. With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being:

With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever, Till hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,

Leave Man, who was a many sided mirror, Which could distort to many a shape of error, This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love; Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth move,

Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left,
Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft

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Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is

poured;

Then when it wanders home with rosy smile,
Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile

It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.

Man, oh, not men! a chain of linked thought,
Of love and might to be divided not,

Compelling the elements with adamantine stress;
As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze,
The unquiet republic of the maze

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Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, Whose nature is its own divine controul, Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea; Familiar acts are beautiful through love;

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Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could !c!

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,

A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,

Is as a tempest-wingèd ship, whose helm

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Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm, Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.

All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass;

Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;

Language is a perpetual orphic song,

Which rules with Daedal harmony a throng

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Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.

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The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on!
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,
Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have none.
THE MOON.

The shadow of white death has past
From my path in heaven at last,

A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers,
Wander happy paramours,

Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
Thy vales more deep.

THE EARTH.

As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, And crystalline, till it becomes a wingèd mist,

And wanders up the vault of the blue day, Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst. THE MOON.

Thou art folded, thou art lying

In the light which is undying

Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;

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All suns and constellations shower

On thee a light, a life, a power

Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
On mine, on mine!

THE EARTH.

I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

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Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, 415 Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep; As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, Under the shadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep. THE MOON.

As in the soft and sweet eclipse,

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,

High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;
So when thy shadow falls on me,

Then am I mute and still, by thee

Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!

Thou art speeding round the sun
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of Heaven
To whom life and light is given;
I, thy crystal paramour
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar Paradise,
Magnet-like of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamoured maiden
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side
Like a Mænad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up
In the weird Cadmean forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest

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I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Sheltered by the warm embrace
Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,
As a lover or a cameleon

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Grows like what it looks upon,

As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky

Until its hue grows like what it beholds,

As a grey and watery mist

Glows like solid amethyst

Athwart the western mountain it enfolds,

When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow.

THE EARTH.

And the weak day weeps

That it should be so.

Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight
Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night,
Through isles for ever calm;

Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep universe,
Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm.

PANTHEA.

I rise as from a bath of sparkling water,
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks,
Out of the stream of sound.

IONE.

Ah me! sweet sister,

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The stream of sound has ebbed away from us,
And you pretend to rise out of its wave,
Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew
Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair.
PANTHEA.

Peace! peace! A mighty Power, which is as darkness,
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky

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Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.
IONE.

There is a sense of words upon mine ear.

PANTHEA.

An universal sound like words: Oh, list!
DEMOGORGON.

Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll

The love which paves thy path along the skies:
THE EARTH.

I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.

DEMOGORGON.

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth
With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:

THE MOON.

I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee!

DEMOGORGON.

Ye kings of suns and stars, Dæmons and Gods,
Etherial Dominations, who possess

Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:

A VOICE FROM ABOVE.

Our great Republic hears, we are blest, and bless.
DEMOGORGON.

Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to pourtray,
Whether your nature is that universe

Which once ye saw and suffered

A VOICE FROM BENEATH.

Or as they

Whom we have left, we change and pass away.

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