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Of thy barrier and thy bar

Of the barrier overgone

By the comets who were cast

From their pride, and from their throne

To be drudges till the last

To be carriers of fire

(The red fire of their heart)

With speed that may not tire

And with pain that shall not part

Who livest - _that_ we know

In Eternity - we feel

But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal?

Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,

Thy messenger hath known

Have dream'd for thy Infinity

A model of their own

Thy will is done. Oh, God!

The star hath ridden high

Thro' many a tempest, but she rode

Beneath thy burning eye;

And here, in thought, to thee

In thought that can alone

Ascend thy empire and so be

A partner of thy throne

By winged Fantasy,

My embassy is given,

Till secrecy shall knowledge be

In the environs of Heaven."

She ceas'd - and buried then her burning cheek

Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek

A shelter from the fervour of His eye;

For the stars trembled at the Deity.

She stirr'd not - breath'd not - for a voice was there

How solemnly pervading the calm air!

A sound of silence on the startled ear

Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."

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