| |
| NOW the frosty stars are gone: | |
| I have watched them one by one, | |
| Fading on the shores of Dawn. | |
| Round and full the glorious sun | |
| Walks with level step the spray, | 5 |
| Through this vestibule of Day, | |
| While the wolves that late did howl | |
| Slink to dens and converts foul, | |
| Guarded by the demon owl, | |
| Who, last night, with mocking croon, | 10 |
| Wheeled athwart the chilly moon, | |
| And with eyes that blankly glared | |
| On my direful torment stared. | |
| |
| The lark is flickering in the light; | |
| Still he nightingale doth sing;— | 15 |
| All the isle, alive with Spring, | |
| Lies, a jewel of delight, | |
| On the blue sea’s heaving breast; | |
| Not a breath from out the west, | |
| But some balmy smell doth bring | 20 |
| From the sprouting myrtle buds, | |
| Or from meadowy vales that lie | |
| Like a green inverted sky, | |
| Which the yellow cowslip stars, | |
| And the bloomy almond woods, | 25 |
| Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars. | |
| All is life that I can spy, | |
| To the farthest sea and sky, | |
| And my own the only pain | |
| Within this ring of Tyrrhene main. | 30 |
| |
| In the gnarled and cloven Pine | |
| Where that hell-born hag did chain me, | |
| All this orb of cloudless shine, | |
| All this youth in Nature’s veins | |
| Tingling with the season’s wine, | 35 |
| With a sharper torment pain me. | |
| Pansies in soft April rains | |
| Fill their stalks with honeyed sap | |
| Drawn from Earth’s prolific lap; | |
| But the sluggish blood she brings | 40 |
| To the tough Pine’s hundred rings, | |
| Closer locks their cruel hold, | |
| Closer draws the scaly bark | |
| Round the crevice, damp and cold, | |
| Where my useless, damp and cold, | 45 |
| Sealing me in iron dark. | |
| |
| By this coarse and alien state | |
| Is my dainty essence wronged; | |
| Finer senses, that belonged | |
| To my freedom, chafe at Fate, | 50 |
| Till the happier elves I hate, | |
| Who in moonlight dances turn | |
| Underneath the palmy fern, | |
| Or in light and twinkling bands | |
| Follow on with linkëd hands | 55 |
| To the ocean’s yellow sands. | |
| |
| Primrose-eyes each morning ope | |
| In their cool, deep beds of grass; | |
| Violets make the airs that pass | |
| Telltales of their fragrant slope. | 60 |
| I can see them where they spring | |
| Never brushed by fairy wing. | |
| All those corners I can spy | |
| In the island’s solitude, | |
| Where the dew is never dry, | 65 |
| Nor the miser bees intrude. | |
| Cups of rarest hue are there, | |
| Full of perfumed wine undrained,— | |
| Mushroom banquets, ne’er profaned | |
| Canopied by maiden-hair. | 70 |
| Pearls I see upon the sands, | |
| Never touched by other hands, | |
| And the rainbow bubbles shine | |
| On the ridged and frothy brine, | |
| Tenantless of voyager | 75 |
| Till they burst in vacant air. | |
| Oh, the song that sung might be, | |
| And the mazy dances woven, | |
| Had that witch ne’er crossed the sea | |
| And the Pine been never cloven! | 80 |
| |
| Many years my direst pain | |
| Has made the wave-rocked isle complain | |
| Winds that from the Cyclades | |
| Came to blow in wanton riot | |
| Round its shore’s enchanted quiet, | 85 |
| Bore my wailings on the seas: | |
| Sorrowing birds in autumn West | |
| Through the world with my lament. | |
| Still the bitter fate is mine, | |
| All delight unshared to see, | 90 |
| Smarting in the cloven Pine, | |
| While I wait the tardy axe | |
| Which, perchance, shall set me free | |
| From the demand witch Sycorax. | |
| |
