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Are cradled into poetry by wrong:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

"And was not this enough?

They met, they parted."

"Child, is there no more?"

If I had been an unconnected man,

"Something within that interval, which bore

1, from this moment, should have form'd some plan The stamp of why they parted, how they met ;

Never to leave sweet Venice: for to me
It was delight to ride by the lone sea:
And then the town is silent-one may write,
Or read in gondolas by day or night,
Having the little brazen lamp alight,
Unseen, uninterrupted :-books are there,
Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair
Which were twin-born with poetry ;—and all
We seek in towns, with little to recall
Regret for the green country :-I might sit
In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit
And subtle talk would cheer the winter night,
And make me know myself:-and the fire-light
Would flash upon our faces, till the day
Might dawn, and make me wonder at my stay.
But I had friends in London too. The chief
Attraction here was that I sought relief
From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought
Within me-'t was perhaps an idle thought,
But I imagined that if, day by day,

I watched him, and seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart
With zeal, as men study some stubborn art
For their own good, and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind,
I might reclaim him from his dark estate.
In friendships I had been most fortunate,
Yet never saw I one whom I would call
More willingly my friend;—and this was all
Accomplish'd not ;-such dreams of baseless good
Oft come and go, in crowds or solitude,
And leave no trace!-but what I now design'd,
Made, for long years, impression on my mind.
-The following morning, urged by my affairs,
I left bright Venice.-

After many years,
And many changes, I return'd; the name
Of Venice, and its aspect, were the same;
But Maddalo was travelling, far away,
Among the mountains of Armenia.

His dog was dead: his child had now become
A woman, such as it has been my doom
To meet with few; a wonder of this earth,
Where there is little of transcendent worth,-
Like one of Shakspeare's women. Kindly she,
And with a manner beyond courtesy,
Received her father's friend; and, when I ask'd
Of the lorn maniac, she her memory task'd,
And told, as she had heard, the mournful tale:
That the poor sufferer's health began to fail,
Two years from my departure; but that then
The lady, who had left him, came again.
Her mien had been imperious, but she now
Look'd meek; perhaps remorse had brought her low.
Her coming made him better; and they stay'd
Together at my father's,-for I play'd,
As I remember, with the lady's shawl;

I might be six years old :-But, after all,
She left him."-

Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet

Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remember d

tears,

Ask me no more; but let the silent years
Be closed and cered over their memory
As yon mute marble where their corpses lie."

I urged and question'd still: she told me how
All happen'd-but the cold world shall not know
ROME, May, 1819.

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

I.

BEFORE those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,
Error and Truth, had hunted from the earth
All those bright natures which adorn'd its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth

The pains of putting into learned rhyme,
A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain,
Within a cavern by a secret fountain.

II.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides:

The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas
So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden
In the warm shadow of her loveliness;-

He kiss'd her with his beams, and made all golden
The chamber of gray rock in which she lay-
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

III.

"Tis said, she was first changed into a vapor,
And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
Like splendor-winged moths about a taper,
Round the red west when the sun dies in n
And then into a meteor, such as caper

On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit;
Then, into one of those mysterious stars
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

IV.

Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden With that bright sign the billows to indent

The sea-deserted sand: like children chidden, At her command they ever came and went:Since in that cave a dewy splendor hidden, Took shape and motion: with the living form Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm V.

A lovely lady garmented in light

From her own beauty-deep her eyes, as are Two openings of unfathomable night

Seen through a tempest-cloven roof-her hair Dark-the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight, Picturing her form! her soft smiles shone afar,

"Why, her heart must have been tough: And her low voice was heard like love, and drew How did it end?" All living things towards this wonder new.

VI.

And first the spotted cameleopard came,

And then the wise and fearless elephant; Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame Of his own volumes intervolved;-all gaunt And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame. They drank before her at her sacred fount, And every beast of beating heart grew bold, Such gentleness and power even to behold. VII.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,

That she might teach them how they should forego Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung

His sinews at her feet, and sought to know, With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue, How he might be as gentle as the doe. The magic circle of her voice and eyes All savage natures did imparadise. VIII.

And old Silenus, shaking a green stick

Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick

Cicada are, drunk with the noonday dew: And Driope and Faunus follow'd quick,

Teasing the God to sing them something new, Till in this cave they found the lady lone, Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

IX.

And Universal Pan, 'tis said, was there,

And though none saw him,-through the adamant Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, And through those living spirits, like a want He past out of his everlasting lair

Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant, And felt that wondrous lady all alone,And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

X.

And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,
And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks,
Who drives her white waves over the green sea;
And Ocean, with the brine on his gray locks,
And quaint Priapus with his company

All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks

Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

XI.

The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came, And the rude kings of pastoral GaramantThese spirits shook within them, as a flame

Stirr'd by the air under a cavern gaunt : Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name, Centaurs and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt Wet clefts, and lumps neither alive nor dead, Dog-headed, bosom-eyed and bird-footed.

XII.

For she was beautiful: her beauty made
The bright world dim, and every thing beside
Seem'd like the fleeting image of a shade:
No thought of living spirit could abide,
Which to her looks had ever been betray'd,
On any object in the world so wide,
On any hope within the circling skies,
But on her form, and in her inmost eyes

XIII.

Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle
And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three
Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle
The clouds and waves and mountains with, and
she

As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle
In the belated moon, wound skilfully;
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove-
A shadow for the splendor of her love.

XIV.

The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling

Were stored with magic treasures-sounds of air Which had the power all spirits of compelling, Folded in cells of crystal silence there; Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling Will never die—yet ere we are aware, The feeling and the sound are fled and gone, And the regret they leave remains alone.

XV.

And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,
Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis ;
Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint
With the soft burthen of intensest bliss;

It is its work to bear to many a saint

Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is, Even Love's-and others white, green, gray, and black,

And of all shapes-and each was at her beck.
XVI.
And odors in a kind of aviary

Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,
Clipt in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy
Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet
slept;

As bats at the wired window of a dairy,

They beat their vans; and each was an adept, When loosed and mission'd, making wings of winds, To stir sweet thoughts or sad in destined minds

XVII.

And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep, And change eternal death into a night

Of glorious dreams or if eyes needs must weep Could make their tears all wonder and delight,

She in her crystal vials did closely keep: If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis said The living were not envied of the dead.

XVIII.

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, The works of some Saturnian Archimage, Which taught the expiations at whose price

Men from the Gods might win that happy age Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;

And which might quench the earth-consuming rage Of gold and blood-till men should live and move Harmonious as the sacred stars above.

XIX.

And how all things that seem untamable,

Not to be check'd and not to be confined, Obey the spells of wisdom's wizard skill :

Time, Earth and Fire-the Ocean and the Wind, And all their shapes-and man's imperial will; And other scrolls whose writings did unbind The inmost lore of Love-let the profane Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.

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XXVI.

All day the wizard lady sat aloof,
Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity
Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy

Of some high tale upon her growing woof,

XXVII.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece
Of sandal-wood, rare gums and cinnamon;
Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is,
Each flame of it is as a precious stone
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this

Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimm'd the burning brand.

XXVIII.

This lady never slept, but lay in trance

All night within the fountain-as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glow'd in her beauty's glance:
Through the green splendor of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance

Like fire-flies-and withal did ever keep
The tenor of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet and folded palm.

XXIX.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
She past at dewfall to a space extended,

Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawn'd an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire, full even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim.

XXX.

Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star,

O'er woods and lawns-the serpent heard it flicker
In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar-

And when the windless snow descended thicker Than autumn leaves, she watch'd it as it came Melt on the surface of the level flame.

XXXI.

She had a Boat which some say Vulcan wrought
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardors in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought,

And gave it to this daughter: from a car
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

XXXII.

And others say, that when but three hours old,
The first-born Love out of his cradle leapt,
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,

And like a horticultural adept,

Stole a strange seed, and wrapt it up in mould,
And sow'd it in his mother's star, and kept
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

XXXIII.

The plant grew strong and green-the snowy flower
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began

To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance; woven tracery ran

Of light firm texture, ribb'd and branching, o'er

Which the sweet splendor of her smiles could dye The solid rind, like a leaf's veined fan,

In hues outshining Heaven-and ever she
Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

Of which Love scoop'd this boat, and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
437

XLI.

XXXIV.

This boat she moor'd upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.

Couch'd on the fountain like a panther tame, One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit;

Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame, Or on blind Homer's heart a winged thought,In joyous expectation lay the boat.

XXXV.

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love-all things together grow

Through which the harmony of love can pass;
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow
A living Image, which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
XXXVI.

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
It seem'd to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,-

In gentleness and strength its limbs were deck'd; The bosom lightly swell'd with its full youth,

The countenance was such as might select Some artist that his skill should never die, Imaging forth such perfect purity.

XXXVII.

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipt with the speed of liquid lightnings,
Dyed in the odors of the atmosphere:

She led her creature to the boiling springs

Where the light boat was moor'd, and said"Sit here!"

And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder with opposing feet.

XXXVIII.

And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters all besprent
With sands and polish'd pebbles:-mortal boat
In such a shallow rapid could not float.

XLII.

And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
Their snow-like waters into golden air,

Or under chasms unfathomable ever
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
A subterranean portal for the river,

It fled the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

XLIII.

And when the wizard lady would ascend

The labyrinths of some many-winding vale, Which to the inmost mountain upward tend

She call'd "Hermaphroditus!" and the pale And heavy hue which slumber could extend

Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale A rapid shadow from a slope of grass, Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

XLIV.

And it unfurl'd its Heaven-color'd, pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below.
And from above into the Sun's dominions

Flinging a glory, like the golden glow

In which spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow

And moonlight splendor of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter-time.

XLV.

And down the streams which clove those mountains And then it winnow'd the Elysian air

vast

Around their inland islets, and amid

The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast Darkness and odors, and a pleasure hid

In melancholy gloom, the pinnace past;

By many a star-surrounded pyramid

Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

XXXIX.

The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
Temper'd like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,
When earth over her face night's mantle wraps;
Between the sever'd mountains lay on high
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

XL.

And ever as she went, the Image lay

With folded wings and unawaken'd eyes; And o'er its gentle countenance did play

The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies, Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,

And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain, They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its ethereal vans-and speeding there,

Like a star up the torrent of the night,

Or a swift eagle in the morning glare

Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight; The pinnace, oar'd by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

XLVI.

The water flash'd like sunlight, by the prow

Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; The still air seem'd as if its waves did flow

The lady's radiant hair stream'd to and fro:

In tempest down the mountains,-loosely driven,

Indignant and impetuous, roar'd to feel
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
The swift and steady motion of the keel.

XLVII.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain
Her spirit; but sail'd forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
His storm-outspeeding wings, th' Hermaphrodite,
She to the Austral waters took her way,
|Beyond the fabulous Thamondocona.

XLVIII.
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake
With the Antarctic constellations haven,

Canopus and his crew, lay th' Austral lake-
There she would build herself a windless haven
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thunder'd by.

XLIX.

A haven, beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
And around which, the solid vapors hoar,

Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags; and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemm'd in with rifts and precipices gray,
Aud hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

L.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the winds' scourge, foam'd like a wounded thing;
And the incessant hail with stony clash

Plow'd up the waters, and the flagging wing
Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash
Look'd like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke-this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven.

LI.

On which that lady play'd her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star,
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks

Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She play'd upon the water; till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.

LII.

And then she call'd out of the hollow turrets

Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

The armies of her ministering spirits

In mighty legions, million after million
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits

On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion,
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere,
They pitch'd upon the plain of the calm mere.

LIII.

LV.

These were tame pleasures.-She would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,
And like Arion on the dolphin's back
Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft-time
Following the serpent lightning's winding track
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laugh'd to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

LVI.

And sometimes to those streams of upper air,
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
She would ascend, and win the spirits there

To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
Wander'd upon the earth where'er she past,
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
LVII.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nitus, when he threads
Egypt and Æthiopia, from the steep

of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,
Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,

His waters on the plain: and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapor-belted pyramid.

LVIII.

By Mæris and the Mareotid lakes,

Strewn with faint blooms like bridal-chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,

Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes

Of those huge forms:- within the brazen doors Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

LIX.

And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased-but tremble ever

Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever

The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 't was her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night.

LX.

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen With motion like the spirit of that wind
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk-cressets from the serene
Hung there, and on the water for her tread,
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

LIV.

And on a throne o'erlaid with star-light, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
She sate, and heard all that had happen'd new
Between the earth and moon since they had brought
The last intelligence-and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night-
And now she wept, and now she laugh'd outright.

Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Past through the peopled haunts of human-kind,
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
Through fane and palace-court and labyrinth mined
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile; through chambers high and deep
She past, observing mortals in their sleep.

LXI.

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.
Here lay two sister-twins in infancy;

There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep
Within, two lovers link'd innocently

In their loose locks which over both did creep Like ivy from one stem;-and there lay calm, Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

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