In the environs of Heaven."
She ceas'd - and buried then her burning cheek
Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervour of His eye;
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr'd not - breath'd not - for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air!
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call
"Silence" - which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings
But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky!
"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run,
Link'd to a little system, and one sun
Where all my love is folly and the crowd
Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath
(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)
What tho' in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky
Apart - like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light!
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle - and so be
To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!"
Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve! - on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love - and one moon adore
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain
Her way - but left not yet her Therasaean reign.
PART II
High on a mountain of enamell'd head
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees,
With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven"
What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven
Of rosy head, that towering far away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve - at noon of night,
While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light
Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown
A window of one circular diamond, there,
Look'd out above into the purple air,
And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
And hallow'd all the beauty twice again,
Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring,
Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing.
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world: that greyish green
That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave
Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave
And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout
That from his marble dwelling peered out,
Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche
Achaian statues in a world so rich?
Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, the wave
Is now upon thee - but too late to save!
Sound loves to revel in a summer night:
Witness the murmur of the grey twilight
That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
Of many a wild star-gazer long ago
That stealeth ever on the ear of him
Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim.
And sees the darkness coming as a cloud
Is not its form - its voice - most palpable and loud?
But what is this? - it cometh - and it brings
A music with it - 'tis the rush of wings
A pause - and then a sweeping, falling strain
And Nesace is in her halls again.
From the wild energy of wanton haste
Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;
And zone that clung around her gentle waist
Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
Within the centre of that hall to breathe
She paus'd and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,
The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair
And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there!
Young flowers were whispering in melody
To happy flowers that night - and tree to tree;
Fountains were gushing music as they fell
In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
Yet silence came upon material things
Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings
And sound alone that from the spirit sprang
Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:
"'Neath blue-bell or streamer
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
The moonbeam away
Bright beings! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like - eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too
(O! how, without you. Love!
Could angels be blest?)
Those kisses of true love
That lull'd ye to rest!
Up! - shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night
It would weight down your flight;
And true love caresses
O! leave them apart!
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one!
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?
Ligeia! wherever
Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep
But the strains still arise
Which _thy_ vigilance keep
The sound of the rain
Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower
The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
Are the music of things
But are modell'd, alas!
Away, then my dearest,
O! hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon-ray
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid
Some have left the cool glade, and
Have slept with the bee
Arouse them my maiden,
On moorland and lea
Go! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
The musical number
They slumber'd to hear
For what can awaken
An angel so soon
Whose sleep hath been taken
Beneath the cold moon,
As the spell which no clumber
Of witchery may test,
The rhythmical number
Which lull'd him to rest?"
Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',
Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight
Seraphs in all but "Knowledge", the keen light
That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar
O Death! from eye of God upon that star:
Sweet was that error - sweeter still that death
Sweet was that error - ev'n with us the breath
Of Science dims the mirror of our joy
To them 'twere the Simoon, and would destroy
For what (to them) availeth it to know
That Truth is Falsehood - or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death - with them to die was rife
With the last ecstasy of satiate life
Beyond that death no immortality
But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"
And there - oh! may my weary spirit dwell
Apart from Heaven's Eternity - and yet how far
from Hell!
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
But two: they felclass="underline" for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover
O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen - 'mid "tears of perfect
moan."
He was a goodly spirit - he who felclass="underline"
A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well
A gazer on the lights that shine above
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair
And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy
To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of wo)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sate he with his love - his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament:
Now turn'd it upon her - but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
"lanthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!
How lovely 'tis to look so far away!
She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls - nor mourn'd to leave.
That ese - that eve - I should remember well
The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall
And on my eye-lids - О the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran