Project Gutenberg's The Daemon of the World, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Title: The Daemon of the World

Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Posting Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #4654] Release Date: November, 2003 First Posted: February 21, 2002

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD ***

Produced by Sue Asscher.

THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD.

by

Percy Bysshe Shelley

A FRAGMENT.

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.

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