Page 81 of 172 AL AARAAF. - Complete Poetical Works

Disconsolate linger--grief that hangs her head,

Repenting follies that full long have fled,

Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,

Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:

Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light

She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:

And Clytia [5] pondering between many a sun,

While pettish tears adown her petals run:

And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth [6]--

And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,

Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing

Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:

And Valisnerian lotus thither flown [7]

From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:

And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante [8]!

Isola d'oro!--Fior di Levante!

And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever [9]

With Indian Cupid down the holy river--

Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given

To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven [10]:

"Spirit! that dwellest where,

In the deep sky,

The terrible and fair,

In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue--

The boundary of the star

Which turneth at the view

Of thy barrier and thy bar--

Of the barrier overgone

By the comets who were cast

From their pride, and from their throne

To be drudges till the last--

To be carriers of fire

(The red fire of their heart)

With speed that may not tire

And with pain that shall not part--

Who livest--_that_ we know--

In Eternity--we feel--

But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal?

Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,

Thy messenger hath known

Have dream'd for thy Infinity

A model of their own [11]--

Thy will is done, O God!

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode

Beneath thy burning eye;

And here, in thought, to thee--

In thought that can alone

Ascend thy empire and so be

A partner of thy throne--

By winged Fantasy [12],

My embassy is given,

Till secrecy shall knowledge be

In the environs of Heaven."

She ceas'd--and buried then her burning cheek

Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek

A shelter from the fervor of His eye;

For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirr'd not--breath'd not--for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."

Ours is a world of words: Quiet we call

"Silence"--which is the merest word of all.

All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things

		The work is an invasion to our privacy. Woody Allen