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The path of spiritual desire described, thro’ divine glooms. 1
THE PATH thro’ which that lovely twain | |
| Have past, by cedar, pine, and yew, | |
| And each dark tree that ever grew, | |
| Is curtained out from Heaven’s wide blue; | |
| Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, | 5 |
| Can pierce its interwoven bowers, | |
| Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, | |
| Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, | |
| Between the trunks of the hoar trees, | |
| Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers | 10 |
| Of the green laurel, blown anew;… | |
| Or when some star of many a one | |
| That climbs and wanders thro’ steep night, | |
| Has found the cleft thro’ which alone | |
| Beams fall from high those depths upon | 15 |
| Ere it is borne away, away, | |
| By the swift Heavens that cannot stay, | |
| It scatters drops of golden light, | |
| Like lines of rain that ne’er unite: | |
| And the gloom divine is all around, | 20 |
| And underneath is the mossy ground … | |
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| There those enchanted eddies play | |
| Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, | |
| By Demogorgon’s mighty law, | |
| With melting rapture, or sweet awe, | 25 |
| All spirits on that secret way; | |
| As inland boats are driven to Ocean | |
| Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw: | |
| And first there comes a gentle sound | |
| To those in talk or slumber bound, | 30 |
| And wakes the destined. Soft emotion | |
| Attracts, impels them: those who saw | |
| Say from the breathing earth behind | |
| There steams a plume-uplifting wind | |
| Which drives them on their path, while they | 35 |
| Believe their own swift wings and feet | |
| The sweet desires within obey: | |
| And so they float upon their way, | |
| Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, | |
| The storm of sound is driven along, | 40 |
| Sucked up and hurrying: as they fleet | |
| Behind, its gathering billows meet | |
| And to the fatal mountain bear | |
| Like clouds amid the yielding air. | |
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First Faun.
Canst thou imagine where those spirits live | 45 |
| Which make such delicate music in the woods? | |
| We haunt within the least frequented caves | |
| And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, | |
| Yet never meet them, tho’ we hear them oft: | |
| Where may they hide themselves? | 50 |
| Second Faun. ’Tis hard to tell: | |
| I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, | |
| The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun | |
| Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave | |
| The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, | 55 |
| Are the pavilions where such dwell and float | |
| Under the green and golden atmosphere | |
| Which noontide kindles thro’ the woven leaves; | |
| And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, | |
| The which they breathed within those lucent domes, | 60 |
| Ascends to flow like meteors thro’ the night, | |
| They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, | |
| And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire | |
| Under the waters of the earth again. | |
| 1st F. If such live thus, have others other lives, | 65 |
| Under pink blossoms or within the bells | |
| Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, | |
| Or on their dying odours, when they die, | |
| Or in the sunlight of the spherèd dew? | |
| 2nd F. Ay, many more which we may well divine. | 70 |
| But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come, | |
| And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, | |
| And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs | |
| Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old, | |
| And Love, and the chained Titan’s woeful doom, | 75 |
| And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth | |
| One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer | |
| Our solitary twilights, and which charm | |
| To silence the unenvying nightingales. | |
