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.
1Of 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 peeréd out
Seem'd earthly in the
shadow of his niche ---
Achaian statues in a world so rich ?
2Friezes
from Tadmor and Persepolis ---
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
3Of beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, 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
4That 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 ---
5Is 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!
6Young 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,
7The 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 ---
(Oh! 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 weigh
down your flight;
And true love caresses
---
Oh! 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,
Oh! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss?
Or, capriciously still,
8Like 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 ---
9The murmur that springs
From
the growing of grass
Are the music of things ---
But are
modell'd, alas! ---
Away, then my dearest,
Oh! 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
10 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 slumber
Of
witchery may test,
The rythmical 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 Simoom,
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 is not "to be"
---
And there --- oh! may my weary spirit dwell ---
11Apart 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 fell: for
Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover ---
Oh! where (and ye may
seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
12Unguided Love hath fallen --- 'mid "tears of perfect moan."
He was a goodly spirit --- he who fell:
A
wanderer by mossy-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 woe)
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.
"Iante, 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 eve --- 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 --- O the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh'd them
into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they
ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
But O that light! --- I slumber'd --- Death, the while,
Stole
o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single
silken hair
Awoke that slept --- or knew that it was there.
The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
13 Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon ---
More beauty clung
around her column'd wall
14Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats
withal,
And when old Time my wing did disenthral
Thence sprang I --- as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung
One half the garden
of her globe was flung
Unrolling as a chart unto my view ---
Tenantless cities of the desert too!
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wish'd to be
again of men."
"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A
brighter dwelling-place is here for thee ---
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And women's loveliness --- and passionate love."
"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
15Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my
brain grew dizzy --- but the world
I left so late was into
chaos hurl'd ---
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar
And fell --- not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
Light, brazen
rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my
falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours ---
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.
"We came --- and to thy Earth --- but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love;
around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and
go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God ---
But, Angelo,
than thine gray Time unfurl'd
Never his fairy wing o'er
fairier world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong
thitherward o'er the starry sea ---
But when its glory
swell'd upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath
man's eye,
We paus'd before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled --- as doth Beauty then!"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They
fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear
not for the beating of their hearts.
