Part I

O! nothing earthly save the ray(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye,As in those gardens where the daySprings from the gems of Circassy—O! nothing earthly save the thrillOf melody in woodland rill—Or (music of the passion-hearted)Joy’s voice so peacefully departedThat, like the murmur in the shell,Its echo dwelleth and will dwell—Oh, nothing of the dross of ours—Yet all the beauty—all the flowersThat list our Love, and deck our bowers—Adorn yon world afar, afar—The wandering star.

’Twas a sweet time for Nesace—for thereHer world lay lolling on the golden air,Near four bright suns—a temporary rest—An oasis in desert of the blest.Away—away—’mid seas of rays that rollEmpyrean splendour o’er th’ unchained soul—The soul that scares (the billows are so dense)Can struggle to its destined eminence—To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,And late to ours, the favoured one of God—But, now, the ruler of an anchored realm,She throws aside the sceptre—leaves the helm,And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,Whence sprang the “Idea of Beauty” into birth,(Falling in wreaths thro’ many a startled star,Like woman’s hair ’mid pearls, until, afar,It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)She looked into Infinity—and knelt.Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled—Fit emblems of the model of her world—Seen but in beauty—not impeding sightOf other beauty glittering thro’ the light—A wreath that twined each starry form around,And all the opaled air in colour bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bedOf flowers: of lilies such as reared the headOn the fair Capo Deucato, and sprangSo eagerly around about to hangUpon the flying footsteps of——deep pride—Of her who loved a mortal—and so died.The Sephalica, budding with young bees,Upreared its purple stem around her knees:And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnamed—Inmate of highest stars, where erst it shamedAll other loveliness: its honied dew(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew),

Deliriously sweet, was dropp’d from heaven,And fell on gardens of the unforgivenIn Trebizond—and on a sunny flowerSo like its own above that, to this hour,It still remaineth, torturing the beeWith madness, and unwonted reverie:In heaven, and all its environs, the leafAnd blossom of the fairy plant, in griefDisconsolate linger—grief that hangs her head,Repenting follies that full long have fled,Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,Like guilty beauty, chastened, and more fair:Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the lightShe fears to perfume, perfuming the night:And Clytia pondering between many a sun,While pettish tears adown her petals run:And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth—And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wingIts way to heaven, from garden of a king:And Valisnerian lotus thither flownFrom struggling with the waters of the Rhone:And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!Isola d’oro!—Fior di Levante!And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever;With Indian Cupid down the holy river—Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is givenTo bear the Goddess’ song, in odours, up to heaven:

Spirit! that dwellest where,In the deep sky,The terrible and fairIn beauty vie!Beyond the line of blue—The boundary of the starWhich turneth at the viewOf thy barrier and thy bar—Of the barrier overgoneBy the comets who were castFrom their pride, and from their throneTo be drudges till the last—To be carriers of fire(The red fire of their heart)With speed that may not tireAnd with pain that shall not part—Who livest—that we know—In Eternity—we feel—But the shadow of whose browWhat spirit shall reveal?Tho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,Thy messenger hath known,Have dreamed for thy InfinityA model of their own—Thy will is done, O God!The star hath ridden highThro’ many a tempest, but she rodeBeneath thy burning eye;And here, in thought, to thee—In thought that can aloneAscend thy empire and so beA partner of thy throne—By winged Fantasy,My embassy is given,Till secrecy shall knowledge beIn the environs of Heaven.”

She ceased—and buried then her burning cheekAbashed, amid the lilies there, to seekA shelter from the fervour of His eye;For the stars trembled at the Deity.She stirred not—breathed not—for a voice was thereHow solemnly pervading the calm air!A sound of silence on the startled earWhich 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 e’en ideal thingsFlap shadowy sounds from visionary wings—But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on highThe eternal voice of God is passing by,And the red winds are withering in the sky!

“What tho’ in worlds which sightless cycles run,Linked to a little system, and one sun—Where all my love is folly, and the crowdStill 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 sunThe sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,Yet thine is my resplendency, so givenTo 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 embassyTo the proud orbs that twinkle—and so beTo ev’ry heart a barrier and a banLest the stars totter in the guilt of man!”

Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,The single-mooned eve!—on Earth we plightOur 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 plainHer way—but left not yet her Therasæan reign.