XXI.

She looked, the flames were dim, the flood
Grew tranquil as a woodland river

Winding through hills in solitude;

Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their fair limbs to float in motion,

Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.

XXII.

And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
When suddenly the mountain crackt,
And through the chasm the flood did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract :

The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin dream
Lifted the Lady from the stream.

XXIII.

The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
And she arose, while from the veil

Of her dark eyes the dream did creep,
And she walked about as one who knew
That sleep has sights as clear and true
As any waking eyes can view.

TO CONSTANTIA,

SINGING.

I.

THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,

Perchance were death indeed! - Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn

Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;

Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet,

And from thy touch like fire doth leap.

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

II.

A breathless awe, like the swift change

Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,

Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the inchantment of thy strain,

And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career,

Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere,

Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.

O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers

Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick —
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes;

My heart is quivering like a flame;

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.

IV.

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.-
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,

On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.

Now 'tis the breath of summer night,

Which when the starry waters sleep,

Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

TO CONSTANTIA.

I.

THE rose that drinks the fountain dew
In the pleasant air of noon,
Grows pale and blue with altered hue
In the gaze of the nightly moon;

For the planet of frost, so cold and bright,
Makes it wan with her borrowed light.

II.

Such is my heart

roses are fair,

And that at best a withered blossom;

But thy false care did idly wear

Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom ;

And fed with love, like air and dew,

Its growth . . .

SONNET.

OZYMANDIAS.

I MET a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart.

Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.