The Witch of Atlas | Page 4

into that winding dell,?With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,?Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;?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.
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,?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 prone vale, like a cloud?Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:?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?In such a shallow rapid could not float.
42.?And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver?Their snow-like waters into golden air,?Or under chasms unfathomable ever?Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear?A subterranean portal for the river,?It fled--the circling sunbows did upbear?Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,?Lighting it far upon its lampless way.
43.?And when the wizard lady would ascend?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?A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,?Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
44.?And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,?With stars of fire spotting the stream below;?And from above into the Sun's dominions?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.
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?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;?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?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?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,?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?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 hoar,?Based on the level waters, to the sky?Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore?Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly?Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,?And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.
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?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,?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,?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,?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?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?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 shipwreck not,?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