Guarding his forehead, with her round
From low-grown branches, and his footsteps slow
From stumbling over stumps and hillocks small;
Until they came to where these streamlets fall,
Down in the bluebells, or a wren light rustling
Among sere leaves and twigs, might all be heard.
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind
With mingled bubblings and a gentle Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfined
In passing here, his owlet pinions shook;
Or, it may be, ere matron Night uptook 561
Her ebon urn, young Mercury, by stealth,
Had dipt his rod in it: such garland wealth
Came not by common growth. Thus on I
thought,
Until my head was dizzy and distraught. Moreover, through the dancing poppies stole
A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul;
And shaping visions all about my sight
Of colours, wings, and bursts of spangly
light;
The which became more strange, and strange, and dim,
And then were gulf'd in a tumultuous swim:
And then I fell asleep. Ah, can I tell
The enchantment that afterwards befell?
Yet it was but a dream: yet such a dream
That never tongue, although it overteem
With mellow utterance, like a cavern
spring,
Could figure out and to conception bring
All I beheld and felt. Methought I lay
Watching the zenith, where the milky way
Among the stars in virgin splendour pours;
And travelling my eye, until the doors 581
Of heaven appear'd to open for my flight,
I became loth and fearful to alight
From such high soaring by a downward glance :
So kept me steadfast in that airy trance,
Spreading imaginary pinions wide.
When, presently, the stars began to glide,
And faint away, before my eager view:
At which I sigh'd that I could not pursue,
And dropt my vision to the horizon's verge;
And lo! from opening clouds, I saw
emerge
The loveliest moon, that ever silver'd o'er A shell for Neptune's goblet; she did
So passionately bright, my dazzled soul
Gurgling in beds of coral: for anon,
I felt upmounted in that region
Where falling stars dart their artillery forth,
And eagles struggle with the buffeting
north
That balances the heavy meteor-stone; -
Felt too, I was not fearful, nor alone,
But lapp'd and lull'd along the dangerous
sky.
Ah, desperate mortal! I ev'n dared to press
Her very cheek against my crowned lip,
And, at that moment, felt my body dip
Into a warmer air: a moment more,
Our feet were soft in flowers. There was
store
Of newest joys upon that alp. Sometimes
A scent of violets, and blossoming limes,
Loiter'd around us; then of honey cells,
Made delicate from all white-flower bells;
And once, above the edges of our nest, 670
An arch face peep'd, an Oread as I
guess'd.
'Why did I dream that sleep o'erpower'd
In midst of all this heaven? Why not see,
Far off, the shadows of his pinions dark,
And stare them from me? But no, like a
spark
That needs must die, although its little
beam
Reflects upon a diamond, my sweet dream
Fell into nothing into stupid sleep.
Soon, as it seem'd, we left our journeying And so it was, until a gentle creep,
A careful moving caught my waking
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