Part II

High on a mountain of enamelled head—Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bedOf giant pasturage lying at his ease,Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and seesWith many a muttered “hope to be forgiven”What time the moon is quadrated in heaven—Of rosy head, that towering far awayInto the sunlit ether, caught the rayOf sunken suns at eve—at noon of night,While the moon danced with the fair stranger light—Upreared upon such height arose a pileOf gorgeous columns on th’ unburthened air,Flashing from Parian marble that twin smileFar down upon the wave that sparkled there,And nursled the young mountain in its lair.Of molten stars their pavement, such as fallThro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pallOf 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,Looked out above into the purple air,And rays from God shot down that meteor chainAnd hallowed all the beauty twice again,Save when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring,Some eager spirit flapped his dusky wing.But on the pillars seraph eyes have seenThe dimness of this world: that greyish greenThat Nature loves the best for Beauty’s graveLurked in each cornice, round each architrave—And every sculptured cherub thereabout,That from his marble dwelling peerèd out,Seemed 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 abyssOf beautiful Gomorrah! O, the waveIs now upon thee—but too late to save!

Sound loves to revel in a summer night:Witness the murmur of the grey twilightThat stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,Of many a wild star-gazer long ago—That stealeth ever on the ear of himWho, 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 bringsA 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 hasteHer cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;And zone that clung around her gentle waistHad burst beneath the heaving of her heart.Within the centre of that hall to breatheShe paused and panted, Zanthe! all beneath,The fairy light that kissed her golden hairAnd longed to rest, yet could but sparkle there!

Young flowers were whispering in melodyTo happy flowers that night—and tree to tree;Fountains were gushing music as they fellIn many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;Yet silence came upon material things—Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings—And sound alone that from the spirit sprangBore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:

“’Neath blue-bell or streamer—Or tufted wild sprayThat keeps, from the dreamer,The moonbeam away—Bright beings! that ponder,With half-closing eyes,On the stars, which your wonderHath drawn from the skies,Till they glance thro’ the shade, andCome down to your browLike——eyes of the maidenWho calls on you now—Arise! from your dreamingIn violet bowers,To duty beseemingThese star-litten hours—And shake from your tressesEncumbered with dewThe breath of those kissesThat cumber them too—(O! how, without you, Love!Could angels be blest?)Those kisses of true loveThat lulled ye to rest!Up!—shake from your wingEach hindering thing:The dew of the night—It would weigh down your flightAnd true love caresses—O! leave them apart!They are light on the tresses,But lead on the heart.

“Ligeia! Ligeia!My beautiful one!Whose harshest ideaWill to melody run,Oh! is it thy willOn the breezes to toss?Or, capriciously still,Like the lone Albatross,Incumbent on night(As she on the air)To keep watch with delightOn the harmony there?

“Ligeia! whereverThy image may be,No magic shall severThy music from thee.Thou hast bound many eyesIn a dreamy sleep—But the strains still ariseWhich thy vigilance keep—The sound of the rainWhich leaps down to the flower,And dances againIn the rhythm of the shower—The murmur that springsFrom the growing of grassAre the music of things—But are modelled, alas!—Away, then, my dearest,Oh! hie thee awayTo springs that lie clearestBeneath the moon-ray—To lone lake that smiles,In its dream of deep rest,At the many star-islesThat enjewel its breast—Where wild flowers, creeping,Have mingled their shade,On its margin is sleepingFull many a maid—Some have left the cool glade, andHave slept with the bee—Arouse them, my maiden,On moorland and lea—Go! breathe on their slumber,All softly in ear,The musical numberThey slumbered to hear—For what can awakenAn angel so soonWhose sleep hath been takenBeneath the cold moon,As the spell which no slumberOf witchery may test,The rhythmical numberWhich lulled him to rest?”

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,A thousand seraphs burst th’ Empyrean thro’,Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight—Seraphs in all but “Knowledge,” the keen lightThat fell, refracted, thro’ thy bounds, afar,O Death! from eye of God upon that star:Sweet was that error—sweeter still that death—Sweet was that error—e’en with us the breathOf Science dims the mirror of our joy—To them ’twere the Simoom, and would destroy—For what (to them) availeth it to knowThat Truth is Falsehood—or that Bliss is Woe?Sweet was their death—with them to die was rifeWith the last ecstasy of satiate life—Beyond that death no immortality—But sleep that pondereth and is not “to be”—And there—oh! may my weary spirit dwell—Apart from Heaven’s Eternity—and yet how far from Hell!What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace impartsTo those who hear not for their beating hearts.A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover—O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?Unguided Love hath fallen—’mid “tears of perfect moan.”

He was a goodly spirit—he who fell:A wanderer by mossy-mantled well—A gazer on the lights that shine above—A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,And looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair—And they and ev’ry mossy spring were holyTo his love-haunted heart and melancholy.The night had found (to him a night of woe)Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo—Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.Here sat he with his love—his dark eye bentWith eagle gaze along the firmament:Now turned it upon her—but ever thenIt trembled to the orb of Earth again.

“Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!How lovely ’tis to look so far away!She seemed not thus upon that autumn eveI left her gorgeous halls—nor mourned to leave.That eve—that eve—I should remember well—The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos, with a spellOn th’ arabesque carving of a gilded hallWherein I sat, and on the draperied wall—And on my eyelids—O the heavy light!How drowsily it weighed them into night!On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ranWith Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:But O that light!—I slumber’d—Death, the while,Stole o’er my senses in that lovely isle,So softly that no single silken hairAwoke that slept—or knew that he was there.

“The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod uponWas a proud temple called the Parthenon—More beauty clung around her column’d wallThan e’en thy glowing bosom beats withal;”And when old Time my wing did disenthral,Thence sprang I—as the eagle from his tower,And years I left behind me in an hour.What time upon her airy bounds I hungOne half the garden of her globe was flung,Unrolling as a chart unto my view—Tenantless cities of the desert too!Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,And half I wished to be again of men.”

“My Angelo! and why of them to be?A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee—And greener fields than in yon world above,And woman’s loveliness—and passionate love.”

“But, list, Ianthe! when the air so softFailed, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft,Perhaps my brain grew dizzy—but the worldI left so late was into chaos hurled—Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,And rolled, a flame, the fiery heaven athwart.Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,And fell—not swiftly as I rose before,But with a downward, tremulous motion thro’Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!Nor long the measure of my falling hours,For nearest of all stars was thine to ours—Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.

“We came—and to thy Earth—but not to usBe given our lady’s bidding to discuss:We came, my love; around, above, below,Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,Nor ask a reason save the angel-nodShe grants to us, as granted by her God—But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurledNever his fairy wing o’er fairier world!Dim was its little disk, and angel eyesAlone could see the phantom in the skies,When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to beHeadlong thitherward o’er the starry sea—But when its glory swelled upon the sky,As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,We paused before the heritage of men,And thy star trembled—as doth Beauty then!”

Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled awayThe night that waned and waned and brought no day.They fell: for Heaven to them no hope impartsWho hear not for the beating of their hearts.