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

Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings

But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high

The eternal voice of God is passing by,

And the red winds are withering in the sky!

"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run,

Link'd to a little system, and one sun

Where all my love is folly and the crowd

Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,

The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath

(Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)

What tho' in worlds which own a single sun

The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,

Yet thine is my resplendency, so given

To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.

Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,

With all thy train, athwart the moony sky

Apart - like fire-flies in Sicilian night,

And wing to other worlds another light!

Divulge the secrets of thy embassy

To the proud orbs that twinkle - and so be

To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban

Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!"

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,

The single-mooned eve! - on Earth we plight

Our faith to one love - and one moon adore

The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.

As sprang that yellow star from downy hours

Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,

And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain

Her way - but left not yet her Therasaean reign.

PART II

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.

Of 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 peered out,

Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche

Achaian statues in a world so rich?

Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis

From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss

Of beautiful Gomorrah! O, 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

That 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

Is 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!

Young 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,

The 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

(O! 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 weight down your flight;

And true love caresses

O! 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,

O! is it thy will

On the breezes to toss?

Or, capriciously still,

Like 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

The murmur that springs

From the growing of grass

Are the music of things

But are modell'd, alas!

Away, then my dearest,

O! 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

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 clumber

Of witchery may test,

The rhythmical 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 Simoon, 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 and is not "to be"

And there - oh! may my weary spirit dwell

Apart 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

O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)

Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?

Unguided Love hath fallen - 'mid "tears of perfect

moan."

He was a goodly spirit - he who fell:

A wanderer by moss-y-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 wo)

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.

"lanthe, 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 ese - 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 - О 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 О 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 he was there.

The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon

Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon

More beauty clung around her column'd wall

Than 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.