4 ve beneath vnose ransiccent foor
The remaicus sors parket mathemativ,
And around winch he if pours 10ar.

Jaei m he level vates a he
Lited her treatini mys mi ike a scre
Cf wintry nountains, nacesssibly

Renmei in with its mi prepics grey,
And hanging ways, many a cove ami jay

And whist he outer lake beneath the last

Of the wind's scourge, Damet like a wounded hing And the incessant hai with sony clasi

Ploughed up the waters, and the fagging wing

Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke-this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven.

LI.

On which that lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star,
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,
To journey from the misty east began.

LII.

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,

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.

LIIL

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
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
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

LIV.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
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.

LV.

These were tame pleasures; she would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack

Up to some beakèd cape of cloud sublime,

And like Arion on the dolphin's back

Ride singing through the shoreless air;-oft time
Following the serpent lightning's winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

LVI.

And sometimes to those streams of upper air
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
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 past,
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

LVII.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads Egypt and Æthiopia, from the steep

Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,

Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,

His waters on the plain: and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

LVIII.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,

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 Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

LIX.

And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased—but tremble ever

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.

LX.

With motion like the spirit of that wind

Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Past through the peopled haunts of human kind, Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,