From the fast mouldering head there shut from view : So that the jewel, safely casketed, Came forth, and in perfumed leaflets spread. LV. O Melancholy, linger here awhile! O Music, Music, breathe despondingly! O Echo, Echo, from some sombre isle, Unknown, Lethean, sigh to us—O sigh! Spirits in grief, lift up your heads, and smile; Lift up your heads, sweet Spirits, heavily, And make a pale light in your cypress glooms, Tinting with silver wan your marble tombs. LVI. Moan hither, all ye syllables of woe, From the deep throat of sad Melpomene! Among the dead: She withers, like a palm LVII. O leave the palm to wither by itself; Her brethren, noted the continual shower LVIII. And, furthermore, her brethren wonder'd much A very nothing would have power to wean Her from her own fair youth, and pleasures gay, And even remembrance of her love's delay. LIX. Therefore they watch'd a time when they might sift This hidden whim; and long they watch'd in vain; For seldom did she go to chapel-shrift, And seldom felt she any hunger-pain: And when she left, she hurried back, as swift LX. Yet they contrived to steal the Basil-pot, And so left Florence in a moment's space, LXI. O Melancholy, turn thine eyes away! O Music, Music, breathe despondingly! O Echo, Echo, on some other day, Will die a death too lone and incomplete, LXII. Piteous she look'd on dead and senseless things, Asking for her lost Basil amorously: And with melodious chuckle in the strings Of her lorn voice, she oftentimes would cry After the Pilgrim in his wanderings, To ask him where her Basil was; and why 'Twas hid from her: "For cruel 'tis," said she, "To steal my Basil-pot away from me." LXIII. And so she pined, and so she died forlorn, No heart was there in Florence but did mourn And a sad ditty of this story borne From mouth to mouth through all the country pass'd: Still is the burthen sung-"O cruelty, To steal my Basil-pot away from me!" HYPERION: A VISION.' THE FIRST VERSION OF THE POEM. ANATICS have their dreams, wherewith A paradise for a sect; the savage, too, ΙΟ And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say, When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave. The passages within brackets are those which are to be found in the later poem. Methought I stood where trees of every clime, Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech, 20 With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen, In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round I saw an arbour with a drooping roof Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms, Like floral censers, swinging light in air; Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits, Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal By angel tasted or our Mother Eve; 30 For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass, Of the soon-fading, jealous Caliphat, 40 50 |