THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD.

A FRAGMENT.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

PART 1.

PART 2.

PART 1.

     Nec tantum prodere vati,

     Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unam

     Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.

     LUCAN, Phars. v. 176.

       How wonderful is Death,

       Death and his brother Sleep!

     One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,

       With lips of lurid blue,

     The other glowing like the vital morn,                        5

       When throned on ocean's wave

       It breathes over the world:

     Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

     Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,

     Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,                    10

     To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne

     Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,

     Which love and admiration cannot view

     Without a beating heart, whose azure veins

     Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,               15

     Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed

     In light of some sublimest mind, decay?

       Nor putrefaction's breath

     Leave aught of this pure spectacle

       But loathsomeness and ruin?—                               20

       Spare aught but a dark theme,

     On which the lightest heart might moralize?

     Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers

     Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids

       To watch their own repose?                                 25

       Will they, when morning's beam

       Flows through those wells of light,

     Seek far from noise and day some western cave,

     Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds

       A lulling murmur weave?—                                   30

       Ianthe doth not sleep

       The dreamless sleep of death:

     Nor in her moonlight chamber silently

     Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,

       Or mark her delicate cheek                                 35

     With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,

       Outwatching weary night,

       Without assured reward.

       Her dewy eyes are closed;

     On their translucent lids, whose texture fine                40

     Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below

       With unapparent fire,

       The baby Sleep is pillowed:

       Her golden tresses shade

       The bosom's stainless pride,                               45

     Twining like tendrils of the parasite

       Around a marble column.

       Hark! whence that rushing sound?

       'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps

       Around a lonely ruin                                       50

     When west winds sigh and evening waves respond

       In whispers from the shore:

     'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes

     Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves

       The genii of the breezes sweep.                            55

     Floating on waves of music and of light,

     The chariot of the Daemon of the World

       Descends in silent power:

     Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud

     That catches but the palest tinge of day                     60

       When evening yields to night,

     Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue

       Its transitory robe.

     Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful

     Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light               65

     Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold

       Their wings of braided air:

     The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car

       Gazed on the slumbering maid.

     Human eye hath ne'er beheld                                  70

     A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,

     As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep

       Waving a starry wand,

       Hung like a mist of light.

     Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds            75

       Of wakening spring arose,

     Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.

     Maiden, the world's supremest spirit

       Beneath the shadow of her wings

     Folds all thy memory doth inherit                            80

       From ruin of divinest things,

       Feelings that lure thee to betray,

       And light of thoughts that pass away.

     For thou hast earned a mighty boon,

       The truths which wisest poets see                          85

     Dimly, thy mind may make its own,

       Rewarding its own majesty,

       Entranced in some diviner mood

       Of self-oblivious solitude.

     Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;                  90

       From hate and awe thy heart is free;

     Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,

       For dark and cold mortality

       A living light, to cheer it long,

       The watch-fires of the world among.                        95

     Therefore from nature's inner shrine,

       Where gods and fiends in worship bend,

     Majestic spirit, be it thine

       The flame to seize, the veil to rend,

       Where the vast snake Eternity                             100

       In charmed sleep doth ever lie.

     All that inspires thy voice of love,

       Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,

     Or through thy frame doth burn or move,

       Or think or feel, awake, arise!                           105

       Spirit, leave for mine and me

       Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!

     It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame

       A radiant spirit arose,

     All beautiful in naked purity.                              110

     Robed in its human hues it did ascend,

     Disparting as it went the silver clouds,

     It moved towards the car, and took its seat

       Beside the Daemon shape.

     Obedient to the sweep of aery song,                         115

       The mighty ministers

     Unfurled their prismy wings.

       The magic car moved on;

     The night was fair, innumerable stars

       Studded heaven's dark blue vault;                         120

       The eastern wave grew pale

       With the first smile of morn.

       The magic car moved on.

       From the swift sweep of wings

     The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;                    125

       And where the burning wheels

     Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak

       Was traced a line of lightning.

     Now far above a rock the utmost verge

       Of the wide earth it flew,                                130

     The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow

       Frowned o'er the silver sea.

     Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,

       Calm as a slumbering babe,

       Tremendous ocean lay.                                     135

     Its broad and silent mirror gave to view

       The pale and waning stars,

       The chariot's fiery track,

       And the grey light of morn

       Tingeing those fleecy clouds                              140

     That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.

       The chariot seemed to fly

     Through the abyss of an immense concave,

     Radiant with million constellations, tinged

       With shades of infinite colour,                           145

       And semicircled with a belt

       Flashing incessant meteors.

       As they approached their goal,

     The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.

     The sea no longer was distinguished; earth                  150

     Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended

       In the black concave of heaven

       With the sun's cloudless orb,

       Whose rays of rapid light

     Parted around the chariot's swifter course,                 155

     And fell like ocean's feathery spray

       Dashed from the boiling surge

       Before a vessel's prow.

       The magic car moved on.

       Earth's distant orb appeared                              160

     The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,

       Whilst round the chariot's way

     Innumerable systems widely rolled,

       And countless spheres diffused

       An ever varying glory.                                    165

     It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,

     And like the moon's argentine crescent hung

     In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed

     A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea

     Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed               170

     Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,

     Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;

     Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed

       Bedimmed all other light.

       Spirit of Nature! here                                    175

     In this interminable wilderness

     Of worlds, at whose involved immensity

       Even soaring fancy staggers,

       Here is thy fitting temple.

       Yet not the lightest leaf                                 180

     That quivers to the passing breeze

       Is less instinct with thee,—

       Yet not the meanest worm.

     That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,

       Less shares thy eternal breath.                           185

       Spirit of Nature! thou

     Imperishable as this glorious scene,

       Here is thy fitting temple.

     If solitude hath ever led thy steps

     To the shore of the immeasurable sea,                       190

       And thou hast lingered there

       Until the sun's broad orb

     Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,

       Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold

       That without motion hang                                  195

       Over the sinking sphere:

     Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,

     Edged with intolerable radiancy,

       Towering like rocks of jet

       Above the burning deep:                                   200

       And yet there is a moment

       When the sun's highest point

     Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,

     When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam

     Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:                 205

     Then has thy rapt imagination soared

     Where in the midst of all existing things

     The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.

       Yet not the golden islands

     That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,                  210

       Nor the feathery curtains

     That canopy the sun's resplendent couch,

       Nor the burnished ocean waves

       Paving that gorgeous dome,

       So fair, so wonderful a sight                             215

     As the eternal temple could afford.

     The elements of all that human thought

     Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join

     To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught

     Of earth may image forth its majesty.                       220

     Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall,

     As heaven low resting on the wave it spread

       Its floors of flashing light,

       Its vast and azure dome;

     And on the verge of that obscure abyss                      225

     Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulf

     Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse

     Their lustre through its adamantine gates.

       The magic car no longer moved;

       The Daemon and the Spirit                                 230

       Entered the eternal gates.

       Those clouds of aery gold

       That slept in glittering billows

       Beneath the azure canopy,

     With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;                   235

       While slight and odorous mists

     Floated to strains of thrilling melody

     Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

       The Daemon and the Spirit

     Approached the overhanging battlement,                      240

     Below lay stretched the boundless universe!

       There, far as the remotest line

     That limits swift imagination's flight.

     Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,

       Immutably fulfilling                                      245

       Eternal Nature's law.

       Above, below, around,

       The circling systems formed

       A wilderness of harmony.

       Each with undeviating aim                                 250

     In eloquent silence through the depths of space

       Pursued its wondrous way.—

     Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.

     Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,

     Strange things within their belted orbs appear.             255

     Like animated frenzies, dimly moved

     Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,

     Thronging round human graves, and o'er the dead

     Sculpturing records for each memory

     In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,                 260

     Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell

     Confounded burst in ruin o'er the world:

     And they did build vast trophies, instruments

     Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,

     Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls            265

     With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,

     Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained

     With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,

     The sanguine codes of venerable crime.

     The likeness of a throned king came by.                     270

     When these had passed, bearing upon his brow

     A threefold crown; his countenance was calm.

     His eye severe and cold; but his right hand

     Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw

     By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart                  275

     Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,

     A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.

     With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks

     Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by.

     Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,                280

     Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues

     Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly,

     Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies

     Against the Daemon of the World, and high

     Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,            285

     Serene and inaccessibly secure,

     Stood on an isolated pinnacle.

     The flood of ages combating below,

     The depth of the unbounded universe

       Above, and all around                                     290

     Necessity's unchanging harmony.

PART 2.

     O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!

     To which those restless powers that ceaselessly

     Throng through the human universe aspire;

     Thou consummation of all mortal hope!                       295

     Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will!

     Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,

     Verge to one point and blend for ever there:

     Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!

     Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,                 300

     Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come:

     O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

       Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,

     And dim forebodings of thy loveliness,

     Haunting the human heart, have there entwined               305

     Those rooted hopes, that the proud Power of Evil

     Shall not for ever on this fairest world

     Shake pestilence and war, or that his slaves

     With blasphemy for prayer, and human blood

     For sacrifice, before his shrine for ever                   310

     In adoration bend, or Erebus

     With all its banded fiends shall not uprise

     To overwhelm in envy and revenge

     The dauntless and the good, who dare to hurl

     Defiance at his throne, girt tho' it be                     315

     With Death's omnipotence. Thou hast beheld

     His empire, o'er the present and the past;

     It was a desolate sight—now gaze on mine,

     Futurity. Thou hoary giant Time,

     Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,—                    320

     And from the cradles of eternity,

     Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep

     By the deep murmuring stream of passing things,

     Tear thou that gloomy shroud.—Spirit, behold

     Thy glorious destiny!

       The Spirit saw                                            325

     The vast frame of the renovated world

     Smile in the lap of Chaos, and the sense

     Of hope thro' her fine texture did suffuse

     Such varying glow, as summer evening casts

     On undulating clouds and deepening lakes.                   330

     Like the vague sighings of a wind at even,

     That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea

     And dies on the creation of its breath,

     And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits,

     Was the sweet stream of thought that with wild motion       335

     Flowed o'er the Spirit's human sympathies.

     The mighty tide of thought had paused awhile,

     Which from the Daemon now like Ocean's stream

     Again began to pour.—

       To me is given

     The wonders of the human world to keep—                     340

     Space, matter, time and mind—let the sight

     Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope.

     All things are recreated, and the flame

     Of consentaneous love inspires all life:

     The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck                   345

     To myriads, who still grow beneath her care,

     Rewarding her with their pure perfectness:

     The balmy breathings of the wind inhale

     Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:

     Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,                   350

     Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream;

     No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven,

     Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride

     The foliage of the undecaying trees;

     But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,                355

     And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace,

     Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,

     Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit

     Reflects its tint and blushes into love.

       The habitable earth is full of bliss;                     360

     Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled

     By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,

     Where matter dared not vegetate nor live,

     But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude

     Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed;            365

     And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles

     Ruffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls

     Its broad, bright surges to the sloping sand,

     Whose roar is wakened into echoings sweet

     To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves               370

     And melodise with man's blest nature there.

       The vast tract of the parched and sandy waste

     Now teems with countless rills and shady woods,

     Corn-fields and pastures and white cottages;

     And where the startled wilderness did hear                  375

     A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,

     Hymmng his victory, or the milder snake

     Crushing the bones of some frail antelope

     Within his brazen folds—the dewy lawn,

     Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles               380

     To see a babe before his mother's door,

     Share with the green and golden basilisk

     That comes to lick his feet, his morning's meal.

       Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail

     Has seen, above the illimitable plain,                      385

     Morning on night and night on morning rise,

     Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread

     Its shadowy mountains on the sunbright sea,

     Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves

     So long have mingled with the gusty wind                    390

     In melancholy loneliness, and swept

     The desert of those ocean solitudes,

     But vocal to the sea-bird's harrowing shriek,

     The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,

     Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds                   395

     Of kindliest human impulses respond:

     Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,

     With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,

     And fertile valleys resonant with bliss,

     Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,                     400

     Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore,

     To meet the kisses of the flowerets there.

       Man chief perceives the change, his being notes

     The gradual renovation, and defines

     Each movement of its progress on his mind.                  405

     Man, where the gloom of the long polar night

     Lowered o'er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil,

     Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost

     Basked in the moonlight's ineffectual glow,

     Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night;        410

     Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day

     With a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame,

     Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere

     Scattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed

     Unnatural vegetation, where the land                        415

     Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease,

     Was man a nobler being; slavery

     Had crushed him to his country's blood-stained dust.

       Even where the milder zone afforded man

     A seeming shelter, yet contagion there,                     420

     Blighting his being with unnumbered ills,

     Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth availed

     Till late to arrest its progress, or create

     That peace which first in bloodless victory waved

     Her snowy standard o'er this favoured clime:                425

     There man was long the train-bearer of slaves,

     The mimic of surrounding misery,

     The jackal of ambition's lion-rage,

     The bloodhound of religion's hungry zeal.

       Here now the human being stands adorning                  430

     This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;

     Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,

     Which gently in his noble bosom wake

     All kindly passions and all pure desires.

     Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,            435

     Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal

     Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise

     In time-destroying infiniteness gift

     With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks

     The unprevailing hoariness of age,                          440

     And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene

     Swift as an unremembered vision, stands

     Immortal upon earth: no longer now

     He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling

     And horribly devours its mangled flesh,                     445

     Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream

     Of poison thro' his fevered veins did flow

     Feeding a plague that secretly consumed

     His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind

     Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,                  450

     The germs of misery, death, disease and crime.

     No longer now the winged habitants,

     That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,

     Flee from the form of man; but gather round,

     And prune their sunny feathers on the hands                 455

     Which little children stretch in friendly sport

     Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

     All things are void of terror: man has lost

     His desolating privilege, and stands

     An equal amidst equals: happiness                           460

     And science dawn though late upon the earth;

     Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;

     Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,

     Reason and passion cease to combat there;

     Whilst mind unfettered o'er the earth extends               465

     Its all-subduing energies, and wields

     The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

       Mild is the slow necessity of death:

     The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,

     Without a groan, almost without a fear,                     470

     Resigned in peace to the necessity,

     Calm as a voyager to some distant land,

     And full of wonder, full of hope as he.

     The deadly germs of languor and disease

     Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts                  475

     With choicest boons her human worshippers.

     How vigorous now the athletic form of age!

     How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!

     Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,

     Had stamped the seal of grey deformity                      480

     On all the mingling lineaments of time.

     How lovely the intrepid front of youth!

     How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

       Within the massy prison's mouldering courts,

     Fearless and free the ruddy children play,                  485

     Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows

     With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,

     That mock the dungeon's unavailing gloom;

     The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,

     There rust amid the accumulated ruins                       490

     Now mingling slowly with their native earth:

     There the broad beam of day, which feebly once

     Lighted the cheek of lean captivity

     With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines

     On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:                   495

     No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair

     Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes

     Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds

     And merriment are resonant around.

       The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more              500

     The voice that once waked multitudes to war

     Thundering thro' all their aisles: but now respond

     To the death dirge of the melancholy wind:

     It were a sight of awfulness to see

     The works of faith and slavery, so vast,                    505

     So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!

     Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall.

     A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death

     To-day, the breathing marble glows above

     To decorate its memory, and tongues                         510

     Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms

     In silence and in darkness seize their prey.

     These ruins soon leave not a wreck behind:

     Their elements, wide-scattered o'er the globe,

     To happier shapes are moulded, and become                   515

     Ministrant to all blissful impulses:

     Thus human things are perfected, and earth,

     Even as a child beneath its mother's love,

     Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows

     Fairer and nobler with each passing year.                   520

       Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene

     Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past

     Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:

     Thy lore is learned. Earth's wonders are thine own,

     With all the fear and all the hope they bring.              525

     My spells are past: the present now recurs.

     Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains

     Yet unsubdued by man's reclaiming hand.

       Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,

     Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue                      530

     The gradual paths of an aspiring change:

     For birth and life and death, and that strange state

     Before the naked powers that thro' the world

     Wander like winds have found a human home,

     All tend to perfect happiness, and urge                     535

     The restless wheels of being on their way,

     Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,

     Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal:

     For birth but wakes the universal mind

     Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow             540

     Thro' the vast world, to individual sense

     Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape

     New modes of passion to its frame may lend;

     Life is its state of action, and the store

     Of all events is aggregated there                           545

     That variegate the eternal universe;

     Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,

     That leads to azure isles and beaming skies

     And happy regions of eternal hope.

     Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:                    550

     Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,

     Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,

     Yet spring's awakening breath will woo the earth,

     To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,

     That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,              555

     Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.

       Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand,

     So welcome when the tyrant is awake,

     So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch flares;

     'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,                     560

     The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.

     For what thou art shall perish utterly,

     But what is thine may never cease to be;

     Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen

     Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,               565

     Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there,

     And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.

     Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene

     Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?

     Hopes that not vainly thou, and living fires                570

     Of mind as radiant and as pure as thou,

     Have shone upon the paths of men—return,

     Surpassing Spirit, to that world, where thou

     Art destined an eternal war to wage

     With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot                      575

     The germs of misery from the human heart.

     Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe

     The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,

     Whose impotence an easy pardon gains,

     Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease:              580

     Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy

     Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,

     When fenced by power and master of the world.

     Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind,

     Free from heart-withering custom's cold control,            585

     Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.

     Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,

     And therefore art thou worthy of the boon

     Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep

     Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,              590

     And many days of beaming hope shall bless

     Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.

     Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy

       Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch

       Light, life and rapture from thy smile.                   595

       The Daemon called its winged ministers.

     Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,

     That rolled beside the crystal battlement,

     Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness.

       The burning wheels inflame                                600

     The steep descent of Heaven's untrodden way.

       Fast and far the chariot flew:

       The mighty globes that rolled

     Around the gate of the Eternal Fane

     Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared                 605

     Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs

     That ministering on the solar power

     With borrowed light pursued their narrower way.

       Earth floated then below:

       The chariot paused a moment;                              610

       The Spirit then descended:

       And from the earth departing

       The shadows with swift wings

     Speeded like thought upon the light of Heaven.

       The Body and the Soul united then,                        615

     A gentle start convulsed Ianthe's frame:

     Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;

     Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained:

     She looked around in wonder and beheld

     Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch,                 620

     Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love,

       And the bright beaming stars

       That through the casement shone.