XLVII. Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light His storm-outspeeding wings, th' Hermaphro dite; She to the Austral waters took her way, XLVIII. Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake, With the antarctic constellations paven, Canopus and his crew, lay th' Austral lakeThere she would build herself a windless haven Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make The bastions of the storm, when through the sky The spirits of the tempest thundered by. XLIX. A haven, beneath whose translucent floor Lifted their dreadful crags; and like a shore Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray, L. And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash Of the winds' 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 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, Outspeeds the Antelopes which speediest are, LII. And then she called out of the hollow turrets Of those high clouds, white, golden, and ver milion, The armies of her ministering spirits- They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere. LIII. They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen Of woven exhalations, underlaid With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen LIV. And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 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 nightAnd now she wept, and now she laughed outright. LV. These were tame pleasures. She would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, And like Arion on the Dolphin's back Ride singing through the shoreless air. Oft time Following the serpent lightning's winding track, She ran upon the platforms of the wind, LVI. And sometimes to those streams of upper air, 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, 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, when he threads Egypt and Ethiopia, from the steep of utmost Axumé, until he spreads, Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep, Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, LVIII. By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors; Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, Or charioteering ghastly alligators, Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes : Of those huge forms within the brazen doors Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast. LIX. And where within the surface of the river Like things which every cloud can doom to die, delight To wander in the shadow of the night. LX. With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Past through the peopled haunts of human kind, Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet |