Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror, Which could distort to many a shape of error, This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love; Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven

Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth

move,

Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left,

Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft

Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is

poured;

Then when it wanders home with rosy smile,
Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile

It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.

Man, oh, not men! a chain of linkèd thought, Of love and might to be divided not, Compelling the elements with adamantine stress; As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze, The unquiet republic of the maze

Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,

Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love;
Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they

could be!

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,

And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,

A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,

385

390

395

400

405

Is as a tempest-wingèd ship, whose helm

Love rules, through waves which dare not over-
whelm,

Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.

All things confess his strength. Through the cold

mass

Of marble and of colour his dreams pass;

Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;

Language is a perpetual Orphic song,

Which rules with Dædal harmony a throng

Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.

The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep

They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on !
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;

And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,
Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have

none.

THE MOON.

The shadow of white death has passed
From my path in heaven at last,

A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers,
Wander happy paramours,

Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
Thy vales more deep.

THE EARTH.

As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold
A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold,

410

415

420

425

430

And crystalline, till it becomes a wingèd mist,
And wanders up the vault of the blue day,
Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray
Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.

THE MOON.

Thou art folded, thou art lying

In the light which is undying

Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;
All suns and constellations shower

On thee a light, a life, a power

Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
On mine, on mine!

THE EARTH.

I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;

As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth

doth keep.

THE MOON.

As in the soft and sweet eclipse,

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,

High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;

So when thy shadow falls on me,

Then am I mute and still, by thee

Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,

Full, oh, too full!

Thou art speeding round the sun
Brightest world of many a one;

455

Green and azure sphere which shinest

With a light which is divinest

Among all the lamps of Heaven

To whom life and light is given;

I, thy crystal paramour
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar Paradise,
Magnet-like of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamoured maiden
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side
Like a Mænad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up

In the weird Cadmæan forest.

460

465

470

475

THE EARTH.

And the weak day weeps

That it should be so.

Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight
Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night,

Through isles for ever calm;

495

Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep universe,

500

Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm.

PANTHEA.

I rise as from a bath of sparkling water,
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks,
Out of the stream of sound.

The stream of sound has ebbed away from us,

And you pretend to rise out of its wave,

Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew

Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair.

PANTHEA.

Peace! peace! A mighty Power, which is as darkness,
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky

510

Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.

515