The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me! To whatsoe'er of dull mortality
Is mine remain a vestal sister still;
To the intense, the deep, the imperishable- Not mine, but me-henceforth be thou united, Even as a bride, delighting and delighted.
The hour is come :-the destined star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinels-but true Love never yet Was thus constrained. It overleaps all fence: Like lightning, with invisible violence
Piercing its continents; like heaven's free breath, Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms. More strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free
The limbs in chains, the heart in agony,
The soul in dust and chaos.
A ship is floating in the harbour now; A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor,- No keel has ever ploughed that path before; The halcyons brood around the foamless isles; The treacherous ocean has forsworn its wiles; The merry mariners are bold and free: Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? Our bark is as an albatross whose nest
Is a far Eden of the purple east ;
And we between her wings will sit, while Night And Day and Storm and Calm pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless sea,
Treading each other's heels, unheededly.
It is an isle under Ionian skies,
Beautiful as a wreck of paradise ;
And, for the harbours are not safe and good, This land would have remained a solitude
But for some pastoral people native there, Who from the elysian, clear, and golden air Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,- Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. The blue Ægean girds this chosen home, With ever-changing sound and light and foam Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide.
There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond,
As clear as elemental diamond,
Or serene morning air. And far beyond,
The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails, Accompany the noonday nightingales.
And all the place is peopled with sweet airs. The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, And dart their arrowy odour through the brain, Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, With that deep music is in unison: Which is a soul within the soul,-they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream.
It is an isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth, and sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. It is a favoured place. Famine or blight, Pestilence, war, and earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way.
The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight: Which sun or moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess. Yet, like a buried lamp, a soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices.
This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude.
And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden eastern air, And level with the living winds which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity.
Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn; and therefore still Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet Keeps up her love-lament; and the owls flit Round the evening tower; and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance;
The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate; and the slow silent night
Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life; and, when years heap Their withered hours like leaves on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day,
The living soul, of this elysian isle— Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise and sit and walk together Under the roof of blue Ionian weather; And wander in the meadows; or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds to touch their paramour ; Or linger where the pebble-paven shore Under the quick faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy ;— Possessing and possessed by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, And by each other, till to love and live Be one; or at the noontide hour arrive
Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expired Night asleep, Through which the awakened Day can never peep; A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's,
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights- Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart, Harmonising silence without a sound.
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, And our veins beat together; and our lips, With other eloquence than words, eclipse
The soul that burns between them; and the wells
Which boil under our being's inmost cells,
The fountains of our deepest life, shall be Confused in passion's golden purity,
As mountain-springs under the morning sun. We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh wherefore two? One passion in twin hearts, which grows and grew Till, like two meteors of expanding flame,
Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still
Burning, yet ever inconsumable;
In one another's substance finding food, Light flames too pure and light and unimbued To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One heaven, one hell, one immortality,
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of Love's rare universe
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!
ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF
I weep for Adonais-he is dead!
Oh weep for Adonais, though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: 'With me Died Adonais! Till the future dares
Forget the past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity.'
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