Around their axle! Then these gleaming reins, How lithe! When this thy chariot attains Its airy goal, haply some bower veils
Those twilight eyes? Those eyes!—my spirit fails;
Dear goddess, help! or the wide gaping air Will gulf me-help!"-At this, with madden'd stare,
And lifted hands, and trembling lips, he stood; Like old Deucalion mountain'd o'er the flood, Or blind Orion hungry for the morn.
And, but from the deep cavern there was borne 200 A voice, he had been froze to senseless stone; Nor sigh of his, nor plaint, nor passion'd moan Had more been heard. Thus swell'd it forth: "Descend,
Young mountaineer! descend where alleys bend Into the sparry hollows of the world!
Oft hast thou seen bolts of the thunder hurl'd As from thy threshold; day by day hast been A little lower than the chilly sheen
Of icy pinnacles, and dipp'dst thine arms Into the deadening ether that still charms Their marble being: now, as deep profound As those are high, descend! He ne'er is crown'd With immortality, who fears to follow Where airy voices lead: so through the hollow, The silent mysteries of earth, descend!"
He heard but the last words, nor could contend
One moment in reflection: for he fled
Into the fearful deep, to hide his head
From the clear moon, the trees, and coming mad
'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sad
Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite
To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light, The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly, But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy; A dusky empire and its diadems;
One faint eternal eventide of gems. Ay, millions sparkled on a vein of gold,
Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told,
With all its lines abrupt and angular : Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star, Through a vast antre; then the metal woof, Like Vulcan's rainbow, with some monstrous roof Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss, It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss Fancy into belief: anon it leads
Through winding passages, where sameness breeds Vexing conceptions of some sudden change; Whether to silver grots, or giant range Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge Now fareth he, that o'er the vast beneath Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth
A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come
But as the murmuring surge.
Chilly and numb His bosom grew, when first he, far away, Described an orbed diamond, set to fray Old Darkness from his throne: 'twas like the sun Uprisen o'er chaos: and with such a stun Came the amazement, that, absorb'd in it, He saw not fiercer wonders-past the wit Of any spirit to tell, but one of those
Who, when this planet's sphering time doth close, Will be its high remembrancers: who they? The mighty ones who have made eternal day For Greece and England. While astonishment With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went Into a marble gallery, passing through A mimic temple, so complete and true In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear'd To search it inwards; whence far off appear'd, Through a long pillar'd vista, a fair shrine, And, just beyond, on light tiptoe divine, A quiver'd Dian. Stepping awfully,
The youth approach'd; oft turning his veil'd
Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old: And, when more near against the marble cold He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread All courts and passages, where silence dead, Roused by his whispering footsteps, murmur'd faint:
And long he traversed to and fro, to acquaint
Himself with every mystery, and awe; Till, weary, he sat down before the maw Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim,
To wild uncertainty and shadows grim.
There, when new wonders ceased to float before,
And thoughts of self came on, how crude and
The journey homeward to habitual self!
A mad pursuing of the fog-born elf,
Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-brier, Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
Into the bosom of a hated thing.
What misery most drowningly doth sing In lone Endymion's ear, now he has caught The goal of consciousness? Ah, 'tis the thought, The deadly feel of solitude: for lo!
He cannot see the heavens, nor the flow Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild In pink and purple chequer, nor, up-piled, The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west, Like herded elephants; nor felt, nor prest Cool grass, nor tasted the fresh slumberous air ; But far from such companionship to wear An unknown time, surcharged with grief, away, Was now his lot. And must he patient stay, Tracing fantastic figures with his spear? "No!" exclaim'd he, " why should I tarry here?" No! loudly echoed times innumerable.
At which he straightway started, and 'gan tell
His paces back into the temple's chief; Warming and glowing strong in the belief Of help from Dian: so that when again He caught her airy form, thus did he plain, Moving more near the while: "O Haunter
Of river sides, and woods, and heathy waste, Where with thy silver bow and arrows keen Art thou now forested? O woodland Queen, What smoothest air thy smoother forehead woos? Where dost thou listen to the wide halloos
Of thy disparted nymphs? Through what dark
Glimmers thy crescent? Wheresoe'er it be, 'Tis in the breath of heaven: thou dost taste Freedom as none can taste it, nor dost waste Thy loveliness in dismal elements;
But, finding in our green earth sweet contents, There livest blissfully. Ah, if to thee It feels Elysian, how rich to me,
An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name! Within my breast there lives a choking flame- O let me cool it zephyr-boughs among ! A homeward fever parches up my tongue- O let me slake it at the running springs! Upon my ear a noisy nothing rings-
O let me once more hear the linnet's note ! Before mine eyes thick films and shadows float- O let me 'noint them with the heaven's light! Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?
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