XVIII. Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot? Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 260 265 Wept tears, and blood like tears? The solemn harmony 270 XIX. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing On the heavy sounding plain, When the bolt has pierced its brain; As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain; As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 275 280 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. 285 Spring, 1820. ARETHUSA. I. ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains, From cloud and from crag, With many a jag, Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks, With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams; Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams: And gliding and springing She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep. II. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook And opened a chasm. 5 IO 15 20 In the rocks; with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. 25 And the black south wind It concealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Over heaps of unvalued stones; Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a net-work of coloured light; Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night: And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts They passed to their Dorian home. V. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; Beneath the Ortygian shore; Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 ΤΟ I. I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Ever to burthen thine. II. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Innocent is the heart's devotion With which I worship thine. 1820. THE QUESTION. I. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, II. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets (Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth) 10 5 5 |