Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude, As bees gorge full their cells. And by the feud 'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear, Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest. When thy gold breath is misting in the west, And there she sits most meek and most alone; As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din And yet thy benediction passeth not The monstrous sea is thine-the myriad sea! Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail His tears who weeps for thee! Where dost thou sigh? Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye, Or, what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo! How changed, how full of ache, how gone in woe! She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees, Dancing upon the waves, as if to please The curly foam with amorous influence. O, not so idle! for down glancing thence, She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning Their savage eyes with unaccustom'd lightning. Where will the splendour be content to reach? O love! how potent hast thou been to teach Strange journeyings! wherever beauty dwells, In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells, In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun, Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won. Amid his toil thou gavest Leander breath; Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death; Thou madest Pluto bear thin element ; And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent On gold sand impearl'd With lily shells, and pebbles milky white, Poor Cynthia greeted him, and soothed her light To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare Far had he roam'd, With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd Old rusted anchors, helmets, breastplates large |