XXI.

Then: "Away! away!" she cried, and stretch'd her sword

As 't were a scourge over the courser's head, And lightly shook the reins:-We spake no word, But like the vapor of the tempest fled Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast; Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread, Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast, As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's broad shadow past.

XXII.

And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,
His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray;
And turbulence, as of a whirlwind's gust,
Surrounded us;-and still away! away!
Through the desert night we sped, while she alway
Gazed on a mountain which we near'd, whose crest
Crown'd with a marble ruin, in the ray

Of the obscure stars gleam'd;-its rugged breast The steed strain'd up, and then his impulse did arrest.

XXIII.

A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean :-
From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted
Paused, might be heard the murmur of the motion
Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted

By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted

To music, by the wand of Solitude, That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean's curved flood.

XXIV.

One moment these were heard and seen-another Past; and the two who stood beneath that night, Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other; As from the lofty steed she did alight, Cythna (for, from the eyes whose deepest light Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale With influence strange of mournfullest delight, My own sweet Cythna look'd), with joy did quail, And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.

XXV.

And, for a space in my embrace she rested,
Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,
While my faint arms her languid frame invested:
At length she look'd on me, and half unclosing
Her tremulous lips, said: "Friend, thy bands were
losing

The battle, as I stood before the King

In bonds.-I burst them then, and swiftly choosing The time, did seize a Tartar's sword, and spring Upon his horse, and swift as on the whirlwind's wing,

XXVI.

"Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer, And we are here."-Then turning to the steed, She press'd the white moon on his front with pure And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed From the green ruin pluck'd, that he might feed;But I to a stone seat that Maiden led,

And kissing her fair eyes, said, "Thou hast need Of rest," and I heap'd up the courser's bed In a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread.

XXVII.

Within that ruin, where a shatter'd portal Looks to the eastern stars, abandon'd now By man, to be the home of things immortal, Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go. And must inherit all he builds below, When he is gone, a hall stood; o'er whose roof Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow, Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof, A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.

XXVIII.

The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made
A natural couch of leaves in that recess,
Which seasons none disturb'd, but in the shade
Of flowering parasites, did spring love to dress
With their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness
Of those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene'er
The wandering wind her nurslings might caress;
Whose intertwining fingers ever there,

Made music wild and soft that fill'd the listening air

XXIX.

We know not where we go, or what sweet dream May pilot us through caverns strange and fair Of far and pathless passion, while the stream Of life our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean Of universal life, attuning its commotion.

XXX.

To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapt Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow Of public hope was from our being snapt, Though linked years had bound it there; for now A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which, below All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere, Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow, Came on us, as we sate in silence there, Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air.

XXXI.

In silence which doth follow talk that causes The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears, When wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses Of inexpressive speech:-the youthful years Which we together past, their hopes and fears, The blood itself which ran within our frames, That likeness of the features which endears The thoughts express'd by them, our very names, And all the winged hours which speechless memory claims,

XXXII.

Had found a voice:-and ere that voice did pass, The night grew damp and dim, and through a rent Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass, A wandering meteor by some wild wind sent, Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent A faint and pallid lustre; while the song Of blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, Strew'd strangest sounds the moving leaves among, A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit's tongue

XXXIII. The meteor show'd the leaves on which we sate, And Cythna's glowing arms, and the thick ties Of her soft hair, which bent with gather'd weight My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes, Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies O'er a dim well, move, though the star reposes, Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies, Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,

XXXIX.

There we unheeding sate, in the communion
Of interchanged vows, which, with a rite
Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamp'd our union.-
Few were the living hearts which could unite
Like ours, or celebrate a bridal night
With such close sympathies, for they had sprung
From linked youth, and from the gentle might
Of earliest love, delay'd and cherish'd long,

Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode

That willing steed-the tempest and the night, Which gave my path its safety as I rode Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite, The darkness and the tumult of their might Borne on all winds.-Far through the streaming rain Floating at intervals the garments white Of Cythna gleam'd, and her voice once again Came to me on the gust, and soon I reach'd the plain.