O be propitious, nor severely deem
My madness impious; for, by all the stars
That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars
That kept my spirit in are burst-that I
Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!
How beautiful thou art! The world how deep!
How tremulous-dazzlingly the wheels sweep
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
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 madness.

'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness; 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,

Descried 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 eye
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 shadow grim.

There, when new wonders ceased to float before,
And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore
The journey homeward to habitual self!

A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf,

Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar,

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 not 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 chaste
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 tree
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 among the zephyr-boughs!
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 he heaven's light!
Dost thou now lave thy feet and ankles white?
O think how sweet to me the freshening sluice!
Dost thou now please thy thirst with berry-juice?
O think how this dry palate would rejoice!
If in soft slumber thou dost hear my voice,