Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Witch of Atlas
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
[Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, ed. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The dedication To Mary first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1824; (2) edd. 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow ed. 1824); (3) an early and incomplete MS. in Shelley’s handwriting (now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully collated by Mr. C. D. Locock, who printed the results in his Examination of the Shelley MSS., etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Shelley, the variations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. The original text is modified in many places by variants from the MSS., but the readings of ed. 1824 are, in every instance, given in the footnotes.]
TO MARY
(on her objecting to the following poem, upon the
score of its containing no human interest]
i
How, my dear Mary,—are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,5
May it not leap and play as grown cats do.
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.
ii
What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,
The youngest of inconstant April’s minions,10
Because it cannot climb the purest sky.
Where the swan sings, amid the sun’s dominions?
Not thine. Thou knowest ’tis its doom to die,
When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions
The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,15
Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.
iii
To thy fair feet a winged Vision came,
Whose date should have been longer than a day,
And o’er thy head did beat its wings for fame,
And in thy sight its fading plumes display;20
The watery bow burned in the evening name.
But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way—
And that is dead.—O, let me not believe
That anything of mine is fit to live!
iv
iWordsworth informs us he was nineteen years25
Considering and retouching ;
Watering his laurels with the killing tears
Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell
Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres
Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well30
May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil
The over-busy gardener’s blundering toil.
v
My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature
As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise
Clothes for our grandsons—but she matches Peter,35
Though he took nineteen years, and she three days
In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre
She wears; he proud as dandy with his stays,
Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress
Like Like King Lear's 'looped and windowed raggedness.' 40
vi
If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow
Scorched by Hell’s hyperequatorial climate
Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:
A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;
In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.45
If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate
Can shrive you of that sin.—if sin there be
In love, when it becomes idolatry.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
i
Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,50
Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth
The pains of putting into learned rhyme,
A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain55
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 enfolden60
In the warm shadow of her loveliness;—
He kissed 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 first was changed into a vapour,65
And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,
Round the red west when the sun dies in it:
And then into a meteor, such as caper
On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:70
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 indent75
The sea-deserted sand—like children chidden,
At her command they ever came and went—
Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden
Took shape and motion: with the living form
Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.80
v
A lovely lady garmented in light
From her own beauty—deep her eyes, as are
Two openings of unfathomable night
Seen through a Temple’s cloven roof—her hair
Dark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight.85
Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew
All living things towards this wonder new.
vi
And first the spotted cameleopard came,
And then the wise and fearless elephant;90
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,95
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 know100
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 105
Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew
Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick
Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,
Teasing the God to sing them something new;110
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,115
And through those living spirits, like a want,
He passed 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.120
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,125
All came, much wondering how the enwombèd 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 Garamant—130
Their spirits shook within them, as a flame
Stirred 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,135
Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.
xii
For she was beautiful—her beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
No thought of living spirit could abide,140
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,
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 145
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;150
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove—
A shadow for the splendour 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,155
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.160
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 was its work to bear to many a saint165
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 odours in a kind of aviary
Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,170
Clipped 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 missioned, making wings of winds,175
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,180
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,185
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 rage190
Of gold and blood—till men should live and move
Harmonious as the sacred stars above;
xix
And how all things that seem untameable.
Not to be checked and not to be confined,
Obey the spells of Wisdom’s wizard skill;195
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.200
xx
And wondrous works of substances unknown,
To which the enchantment of her father’s power
Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;
Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone205
In their own golden beams—each like a flower,
Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light
Under a cypress in a starless night.
xxi
At first she lived alone in this wild home,
And her own thoughts were each a minister,210
Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,
Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,
To work whatever purposes might come
Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire
Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,215
Through all the regions which he shines upon.
xxii
The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,
Oreads and ISaiads, with long weedy locks,
Offered to do her bidding through the seas,
Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,220
And far beneath the matted roots of trees,
And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,
So they might live for ever in the light
Of her sweet presence—each a satellite.
xxiii
‘This may not be,’ the wizard maid replied;225
‘The fountains where the Naiades bedew
Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;
The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew
Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;
The boundless ocean like a drop of dew 230
Will be consumed—the stubborn centre must
Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.
xxiv
‘And ye with them will perish, one by one;—
If I must sigh to think that this shall be,
If I must weep when the surviving Sun235
Shall smile on your decay—oh, ask not me
To love you till your little race is run;
I cannot die as ye must—over me
Your leaves shall glance—the streams in which’ve dwell
Shall be my paths henceforth, and so—farewell!’— 240
xxv
She spoke and wept:—the dark and azure well
Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,
And every little circlet where they fell
Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres
And intertangled lines of light:—a knell245
Of sobbing voices came upon her ears
From those departing Forms, o’er the serene
Of the white streams and of the forest green.
xxvi
All day the wizard lady sate aloof.
Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, 250
Under the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;
Or broidering the pictured poesy
Of some high tale upon her growing woof,
Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye
In hues outshining heaven—and ever she 255
Added some grace to the wrought poesy.
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 260
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this
Belongs to each and ail who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
xxviii
This lady never slept, but lay in trance265
All night within the fountain—as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep270
The tenour 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 passed at dewfall to a space extended,275
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire—full even to the brim,
And overflowing all the margin trim.280
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—285
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched 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;290
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours 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 boat295
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 lept.
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
And like a horticultural adept,300
Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,
And sowed 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 305
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, ribbed and branching, o’er
The solid rind, like a leaf’s veined fan—310
Of which Love scooped this boat—and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
xxxiv
This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.315
Couched 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. 320
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—325
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 seemed to have developed no defect330
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,—
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth.
The countenance was such as might select
Some artist that his skill should never die,335
Imaging forth such perfect purity.
xxxvii
From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:340
She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said: ‘Sit here!’
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.
xxxviii
And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,
Around their inland islets, and amid 346
The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast
Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;
By many a star-surrounded pyramid350
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,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; 355
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 severed mountains lay on high,
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.360
xl
And ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened 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, 365
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.
xli
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: 370
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 sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat 375
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 380
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.
xlii
And when the wizard lady would ascend 385
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—
She called ‘Hermaphroditus!’—and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 390
A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
xliv
And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
And from above into the Sun’s dominions 395
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.400
xlv
And then it winnowed the Elysian air
Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vans—and speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,
Or a swift eagle in the morning glare 405
Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,
The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
xlvi
The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow
Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; 410
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven
The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 415
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 sailed forth under the light 420
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;
She to the Austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,—
xlviii
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 425
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake—
There she would build herself a windless haven
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 430
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:
xlix
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
And around which the solid vapours hoar, 435
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 440
l
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash 445
Looked 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 played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star,450
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are.
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 455
To journey from the misty east began.
lii
And then she called 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, 460
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
liii
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 465
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 470
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.
liv
And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aery dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 475
She sate, and heard all that had happened 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 laughed outright. 480
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 485
Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.
lvi
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 490
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
Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed, 495
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
lvii
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads, 500
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 vapour-belted pyramid.
lviii
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, 505
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 510
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 515
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, ’twas her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night. 520
lx
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined 525
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
lxi
A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. 530
Here lay two sister twins in infancy;
There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
Within, two lovers linked innocently
In their loose locks which over both did creep
Like ivy from one stem;—and there lay calm 535
Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
lxii
But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
Not to be mirrored in a holy song—
Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong; 540
And all the code of Custom’s lawless law
Written upon the brows of old and young:
‘This,’ said the wizard maiden, ‘is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.’
lxiii
And little did the sight disturb her soul.— 545
We, the weak manners of that wide lake
Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,
Our course unpiloted and starless make
O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal:—
But she in the calm depths her way could take, 550
Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide
Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.
lxiv
And she saw princes couched under the glow
Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court
In dormitories ranged, row after row, 555
She saw the priests asleep—all of one sort—
For all were educated to be so.—
The peasants in their huts, and in the port
The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,
And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. 560
xlv
And all the forms in which those spirits lay
Were to her sight like the diaphanous
Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array
Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us
Only their scorn of all concealment: they 565
Move in the light of their own beauty thus.
But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,
And little thought a Witch was looking on them.
lxvi
She, all those human figures breathing there,
Beheld as living spirits—to her eyes 570
The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,
And often through a rude and worn disguise
She saw the inner form most bright and fair—
And then she had a charm of strange device,
Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, 575
Could make that spirit mingle with her own.
lxvii
Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given
For such a charm when Tithon became gray?
Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven
Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina 580
Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven
Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,
To any witch who would have taught you it?
The Heliad doth not know its value yet.
lxviii
‘Tis said in after times her spirit free 585
Knew what love was, and felt itself alone—
But holy Dian could not chaster be
Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,
Than now this lady—like a sexless bee
Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none, 590
Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden
Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.
lxix
To those she saw most beautiful, she gave
Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:—
They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, 595
And lived thenceforward as if some control,
Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave
Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,
Was as a green and overarching bower
Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. 600
lxx
For on the night when they were buried, she
Restored the embalmers’ ruining, and shook
The light out of the funeral lamps, to be
A mimic day within that deathy nook;
And she unwound the woven imagery 605
Of second childhood’s swaddling bands, and took
The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,
And threw it with contempt into a ditch.
lxxi
And there the body lay, age after age,
Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, 610
Like one asleep in a green hermitage,
With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,
And living in its dreams beyond the rage
Of death or life; while they were still arraying
In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind 615
And fleeting generations of mankind.
lxxii
And she would write strange dreams upon the brain
Of those who were less beautiful, and make
All harsh and crooked purposes more vain
Than in the desert is the serpent’s wake 620
Which the sand covers—all his evil gain
The miser in such dreams would rise and shake
Into a beggar’s lap;—the lying scribe
Would his own lies betray without a bribe.
lxxiii
The priests would write an explanation full, 625
Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,
How the God Apis really was a bull,
And nothing more; and bid the herald stick
The same against the temple doors, and pull
The old cant down; they licensed all to speak 630
Whate’er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,
By pastoral letters to each diocese.
lxxiv
The king would dress an ape up in his crown
And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,
And on the right hand of the sunlike throne 635
Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat
The chatterings of the monkey.—Every one
Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet
Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,
And kissed—alas, how many kiss the same! 640
lxxv
The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and
Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;
Round the red anvils you might see them stand
Like Cyclopses in Vulcan’s sooty abysm,
Beating their swords to ploughshares;—in a band 645
The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism
Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,
To the annoyance of king Amasis.
lxxvi
And timid lovers who had been so coy,
They hardly knew whether they loved or not, 650
Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,
To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;
And when next day the maiden and the boy
Met one another, both, like sinners caught,
Blushed at the thing which each believed was done 655
Only in fancy—till the tenth moon shone;
lxxvii
And then the Witch would let them take no ill:
Of many thousand schemes which lovers find.
The Witch found one,—and so they took their fill
Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. 660
Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,
Were torn apart—a wide wound, mind from mind!—
She did unite again with visions clear
Of deep affection and of truth sincere.
lxxviii
These were the pranks she played among the cities 665
Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites
And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties
To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,
I will declare another time; for it is
A tale more fit for the weird winter nights 670
Than for these garish summer days, when we
Scarcely believe much more than we can see.