The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 70

37.

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings, Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings, Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere: _340 She led her creature to the boiling springs Where the light boat was moored, and said: 'Sit here!'

And pointed to the prow, and took her seat Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.

38.

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast, _345 Around their inland islets, and amid The panther-peopled forests whose shade cast Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid In melancholy gloom, the pinnace pa.s.sed; By many a star-surrounded pyramid _350 Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

39.

The silver noon into that winding dell, With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; _355 A green and glowing light, like that which drops From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps; Between the severed mountains lay on high, Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. _360

40.

And ever as she went, the Image lay With folded wings and unawakened eyes; And o'er its gentle countenance did play The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, _365 And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain, They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

41.

And ever down the p.r.o.ne vale, like a cloud Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: _370 Now lingering on the pools, in which abode The calm and darkness of the deep content In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road Of white and dancing waters, all besprent With sand and polished pebbles:--mortal boat _375 In such a shallow rapid could not float.

42.

And down the earthquaking cataracts which s.h.i.+ver Their snow-like waters into golden air, Or under chasms unfathomable ever Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear _380 A subterranean portal for the river, It fled--the circling sunbows did upbear Its fall down the h.o.a.r precipice of spray, Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

43.

And when the wizard lady would ascend _385 The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, Which to the inmost mountain upward tend-- She called 'Hermaphroditus!'--and the pale And heavy hue which slumber could extend Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale _390 A rapid shadow from a slope of gra.s.s, Into the darkness of the stream did pa.s.s.

44.

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions, With stars of fire spotting the stream below; And from above into the Sun's dominions _395 Flinging a glory, like the golden glow In which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions, All interwoven with fine feathery snow And moonlight splendour of intensest rime, With which frost paints the pines in winter time. _400

45.

And then it winnowed the Elysian air Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its aethereal vans--and speeding there, Like a star up the torrent of the night, Or a swift eagle in the morning glare _405 Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight, The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

46.

The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; _410 The still air seemed as if its waves did flow In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro: Beneath, the billows having vainly striven Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel _415 The swift and steady motion of the keel.

47.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, Or in the noon of interlunar night, The lady-witch in visions could not chain Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light _420 Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite; She to the Austral waters took her way, Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,--

48.

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, _425 Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, With the Antarctic constellations paven, Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake-- There she would build herself a windless haven Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make _430 The bastions of the storm, when through the sky The spirits of the tempest thundered by:

49.

A haven beneath whose translucent floor The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, And around which the solid vapours h.o.a.r, _435 Based on the level waters, to the sky Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a sh.o.r.e Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray, And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. _440

50.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing, And the incessant hail with stony clash Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash _445 Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke--this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,--

51.

On which that lady played her many pranks, Circling the image of a shooting star, _450 Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are, In her light boat; and many quips and cranks She played upon the water, till the car Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, _455 To journey from the misty east began.

52.

And then she called out of the hollow turrets Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion, The armies of her ministering spirits-- In mighty legions, million after million, _460 They came, each troop emblazoning its merits On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion Of the intertexture of the atmosphere They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

53.

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen _465 Of woven exhalations, underlaid With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid With crimson silk--cressets from the serene Hung there, and on the water for her tread _470 A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

54.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, Which highest shoals of mountain s.h.i.+pwreck not, _475 She sate, and heard all that had happened new Between the earth and moon, since they had brought The last intelligence--and now she grew Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night-- And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. _480

55.

These were tame pleasures; she would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, And like Arion on the dolphin's back Ride singing through the sh.o.r.eless air;--oft-time _485 Following the serpent lightning's winding track, She ran upon the platforms of the wind, And laughed to bear the fire-b.a.l.l.s roar behind.

56.

And sometimes to those streams of upper air Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, _490 She would ascend, and win the spirits there To let her join their chorus. Mortals found That on those days the sky was calm and fair, And mystic s.n.a.t.c.hes of harmonious sound Wandered upon the earth where'er she pa.s.sed, _495 And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

57.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, _500 Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep, His waters on the plain: and crested heads Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

58.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, _505 Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors, Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, Or charioteering ghastly alligators, Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes Of those huge forms--within the brazen doors _510 Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

59.

And where within the surface of the river The shadows of the ma.s.sy temples lie, And never are erased--but tremble ever _515 Like things which every cloud can doom to die, Through lotus-paven ca.n.a.ls, and wheresoever The works of man pierced that serenest sky With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight To wander in the shadow of the night. _520

60.

With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Pa.s.sed through the peopled haunts of humankind.

Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined _525 With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep She pa.s.sed, observing mortals in their sleep.

61.

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. _530 Here lay two sister twins in infancy; There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep; Within, two lovers linked innocently In their loose locks which over both did creep Like ivy from one stem;--and there lay calm _535 Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

62.

But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, Not to be mirrored in a holy song-- Distortions foul of supernatural awe, And pale imaginings of visioned wrong; _540 And all the code of Custom's lawless law Written upon the brows of old and young: 'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the strife Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'

63.

And little did the sight disturb her soul.-- _545 We, the weak mariners of that wide lake Where'er its sh.o.r.es extend or billows roll, Our course unpiloted and starless make O'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:-- But she in the calm depths her way could take, _550 Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.

64.

And she saw princes couched under the glow Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court In dormitories ranged, row after row, _555 She saw the priests asleep--all of one sort-- For all were educated to be so.-- The peasants in their huts, and in the port The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. _560

65.

And all the forms in which those spirits lay Were to her sight like the diaphanous Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us Only their scorn of all concealment: they _565 Move in the light of their own beauty thus.

But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

66.

She, all those human figures breathing there, Beheld as living spirits--to her eyes _570 The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, And often through a rude and worn disguise She saw the inner form most bright and fair-- And then she had a charm of strange device, Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, _575 Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

67.

Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given For such a charm when t.i.thon became gray?

Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina _580 Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay, To any witch who would have taught you it?

The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

68.

'Tis said in after times her spirit free _585 Knew what love was, and felt itself alone-- But holy Dian could not chaster be Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, Than now this lady--like a s.e.xless bee Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none, _590 Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden Pa.s.sed with an eye serene and heart unladen.