The last spot of earth's orb I trod upon
Was a proud temple called the Parthenon:*
More beauty clung around her columned wall
Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal.t
And when old Time my wing did disenthral,
Thence sprang I, as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
* It was entire in 1687, the most elevated spot in Athens. +"Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the queen of love."
What time upon her airy bounds I hung,
One half the garden of her globe was flung.
Unrolling as a chart unto my view—
Tenantless cities of the desert too.
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wished to be again of men."
"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling place is here for thee:
And greener fields than in yòn world above,
And woman's loveliness, and passionate love."
"But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
Failed, as my pennoned* spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy; but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurled,
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And rolled, a flame, the fiery heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,
And fell, not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward tremulous motion, through,
Like brazen rays, this golden star unto !
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours.
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid earth.
* Pennon, for pinion.-MILTON.
"We came, and to thy earth; but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night, we come and go,
Nor ask a reason, save the angel-nod
She grants to us, as granted by her God;
But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled
Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world!
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea;
But when its glory swelled upon the sky,
As glowing beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paused before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled, as doth beauty then."
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned, and brought no day. They fell; for Heaven to them no hope imparts,
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
SCIENCE, true daughter of old Time thou art,
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree?
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