Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.
And I was free of haunts umbrageous;
Could wander in the mazy forest-house
Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler’d deer,
And birds from coverts innermost and drear
Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow—
To me new-born delights!
For moments few, a temperament as stern
As Pluto’s sceptre, that my words not burn
These uttering lips, while I in calm speech tell
How specious heaven was changed to real hell.
I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake
My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts;
But she was gone. Whereat the barbed shafts
Of disappointment stuck in me so sore,
That out I ran and search’d the forest o’er.
Wandering about in pine and cedar gloom
Damp awe assail’d me, for there ’gan to boom
A sound of moan, an agony of sound
Sepulchral, from the distance all around.
Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and rumbled
That fierce complain to silence; while I stumbled
Down a precipitous path, as if impell’d.
I came to a dark valley. Groanings swell’d
Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew,
The nearer I approach’d a flame’s gaunt blue,
That glared before me through a thorny brake.
This fire, like the eye of Gordian snake,
Bewitch’d me towards; and I soon was near
A sight too fearful for the feel of fear:
In thicket hid I cursed the haggard scene—
The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,
Seated upon an uptorn forest root;
And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,
Laughing, and wailing, grovelling, serpenting,
Showing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting.
O such deformities! old Charon’s self,
Should he give up awhile his penny pelf,
And take a dream ’mong rushes Stygian,
It could not be so fantasied. Fierce, wan,
And tyrannising was the lady’s look,
As over them a gnarled staff she shook.
Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh’d out,
And from a basket emptied to the rout
Clusters of grapes, the which they raven’d quick
And roar’d for more; with many a hungry lick
About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow,
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,
And emptied on’t a black dull- gurgling phial:
Groan’d one and all, as if some piercing trial
Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.
She lifted up the charm: appealing groans
From their poor breasts went suing to her ear
In vain; remorseless as an infant’s bier
She whisk’d against their eyes the sooty oil,
Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil,
Increasing gradual to a tempest rage,
Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture pilgrimage;
Until their grieved bodies ’gan to bloat
And puff from the tail’s end to stifled throat:
Then was appalling silence: then a sight
More wildering than all that hoarse affright;
For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen,
Went through the dismal air like one huge Python
Antagonising Boreas,—and so vanish’d.
Yet there was not a breath of wind: she banish’d
These phantoms with a nod. Lo! from the dark
Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark.
With dancing and loud revelry,—and went
Swifter then centaurs after rapine bent.—
Sighing an elephant appear’d and bow’d
Before the fierce witch, speaking thus aloud
In human accent: ‘Potent goddess! chief
Of pains resistless! make my being brief,
Or let me from this heavy prison fly:
Or give me to the air, or let me die!
I sue not for my happy crown again;
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;
I sue not for my lone, my widow’d wife;
I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys!
I will forget them; I will pass these joys;
Ask nought so heavenward, so too—too high;
Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,
Or be deliver’d from this cumbrous flesh,
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,
And merely given to the cold bleak air.
Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!’
Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come
Naked and sabre- like against my heart.
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,
Fainted away in that dark lair of night.
Think, my deliverer, how desolate
My waking must have been! disgust and hate
And terrors manifold divided me
A spoil amongst them. I prepared to flee
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:
I fled three days—when lo! before me stood
Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now,
A clammy dew is beading on my brow,
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse.
‘Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse
Made of rose-leaves and thistle-down, express,
To cradle thee, my sweet, and lull thee: yes,
I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:
My tenderest squeeze is but a giant’s clutch.
So, fairy- thing, it shall have lullabies
Unheard of yet; and it shall still its cries
Upon some breast more lily-feminine.
Oh, no—it shall not pine, and pine, and pine
More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;
And then ’twere pity, but fate’s gentle shears
Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt!
Young dove of the waters! truly I’ll not hurt
One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,
That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.
And must we part? Ah, yes, it must be so.
Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,
Let me sob over thee my last adieus,
And speak a blessing: Mark me! thou hast thews
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race:
But such a love is
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