XLIV. And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions, All interwoven with fine feathery snow XLV. And then it winnowed the Elysian air 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 XLVII. Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, 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 lake; There 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 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. In mighty legions million after million 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 Of woven exhalations, underlaid LIV. And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught 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 out right. 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 Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 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, 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, His waters on the plain; and crested heads |