FullReads

48.
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, 425
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake–
There she would build herself a windless haven
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make 430
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:

49.
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
And around which the solid vapours hoar, 435
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 440

50.
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind’s 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 445
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke–this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,–

51.
On which that lady played her many pranks,
Circling the image of a shooting star, 450
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 455
To journey from the misty east began.

52.
And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits–
In mighty legions, million after million, 460
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.

53.
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 465
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk–cressets from the serene
Hung there, and on the water for her tread 470
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

54.
And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aery dew,
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 475
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 night–
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 480

55.
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 485
Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to bear the fire-balls roar behind.