Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is —
Each flame of it is as a precious stone 260
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this
Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
28.
This lady never slept, but lay in trance 265
All night within the fountain — as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
Like fire-flies — and withal did ever keep 270
The tenour of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.
29.
And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She passed at dewfall to a space extended, 275
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire — full even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim. 280
30.
Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star
O’er woods and lawns; — the serpent heard it flicker
In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar — 285
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.
31.
She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought
For Venus, as the chariot of her star; 290
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought
And gave it to this daughter: from a car
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat 295
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.
32.
And others say, that, when but three hours old,
The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
And like a horticultural adept, 300
Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,
And sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
And with his wings fanning it as it grew.
33.
The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower 305
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began
To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance; woven tracery ran
Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er
The solid rind, like a leaf’s veined fan — 310
Of which Love scooped this boat — and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
34.
This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it. 315
Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,
One of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit —
Or as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame —
Or on blind Homer’s heart a winged thought, —
In joyous expectation lay the boat. 320
35.
Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love — all things together grow
Through which the harmony of love can pass;
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow — 325
A living Image, which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
36.
A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
It seemed to have developed no defect 330
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both, —
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
The countenance was such as might select
Some artist that his skill should never die, 335
Imaging forth such perfect purity.
37.
From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere: 340
She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said: ‘Sit here!’
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.
38.
And down the streams which clove those mountains vast, 345
Around their inland islets, and amid
The panther-peopled forests whose shade cast
Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;
By many a star-surrounded pyramid 350
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.
39.
The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; 355
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,
When Earth over her face Night’s mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. 360
40.
And ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
And o’er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, 365
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.
41.
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: 370
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent
With sand and polished pebbles: — mortal boat 375
In such a shallow rapid could not float.
42.
And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear 380
A subterranean portal for the river,
It fled — the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.
43.
And when the wizard lady would ascend 385
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend —
She called ‘Hermaphroditus!’ — and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 390
A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
44.
And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
A
nd from above into the Sun’s dominions 395
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter time. 400
45.
And then it winnowed the Elysian air
Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vans — and speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,
Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 405
Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,
The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
46.
The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow
Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; 410
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven
The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 415
The swift and steady motion of the keel.
47.
Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light 420
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;
She to the Austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana, —
48.
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 425
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake —
There she would build herself a windless haven
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 430
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:
49.
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
And around which the solid vapours hoar, 435
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 440
50.
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash 445
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke — this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven, —
51.
On which that lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star, 450
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 455
To journey from the misty east began.
52.
And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits —
In mighty legions, million after million, 460
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
53.
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 465
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk — cressets from the serene
Hung there, and on the water for her tread 470
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.
54.
And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aery dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 475
She sate, and heard all that had happened new
Between the earth and moon, since they had brought
The last intelligence — and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night —
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 480
55.
These were tame pleasures; she would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,
And like Arion on the dolphin’s back
Ride singing through the shoreless air; — oft-time 485
Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to bear the fire-balls roar behind.
56.
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 490
She would ascend, and win the spirits there
To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed, 495
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
57.
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, 500
Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,
His waters on the plain: and crested heads
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
58.
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, 505
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms — within the brazen doors 510
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
59.
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased — but tremble ever 515
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ‘twas her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night. 520
60.
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind.
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined 525
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
61.
A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
Mortals subdued in all the shapes o
f sleep. 530
Here lay two sister twins in infancy;
There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
Within, two lovers linked innocently
In their loose locks which over both did creep
Like ivy from one stem; — and there lay calm 535
Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
62.
But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
Not to be mirrored in a holy song —
Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong; 540
And all the code of Custom’s lawless law
Written upon the brows of old and young:
‘This,’ said the wizard maiden, ‘is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.’
63.
And little did the sight disturb her soul. — 545
We, the weak mariners of that wide lake
Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,
Our course unpiloted and starless make
O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal: —
But she in the calm depths her way could take, 550
Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide
Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.
64.
And she saw princes couched under the glow
Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court
In dormitories ranged, row after row, 555
She saw the priests asleep — all of one sort —
For all were educated to be so. —
The peasants in their huts, and in the port
The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,
And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. 560
65.
And all the forms in which those spirits lay
Were to her sight like the diaphanous
Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array
Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us
Only their scorn of all concealment: they 565
Move in the light of their own beauty thus.
But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,
And little thought a Witch was looking on them.
66.
She, all those human figures breathing there,
Beheld as living spirits — to her eyes 570
The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,
And often through a rude and worn disguise
She saw the inner form most bright and fair —
And then she had a charm of strange device,
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, 575
Could make that spirit mingle with her own.
67.
Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given
For such a charm when Tithon became gray?
Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven
Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina 580
Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven
Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,