Al Aaraaf（第3/4页）

In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;

Yet silence came upon material things—

Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings—

And sound alone that from the spirit sprang

Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:

" 'Neath blue-bell or streamer—

Or tufted wild spray

That keeps, from the dreamer,

The moonbeam away—

Bright beings! that ponder,

With half closing eyes,

On the stars which your wonder

Hath drawn from the skies,

Till they glance thro' the shade, and

Come down to your brow

Like——eyes of the maiden

Who calls on you now—

Arise! from your dreaming

In violet bowers,

To duty beseeming

These star-litten hours—

And shake from your tresses

Encumber'd with dew

The breath of those kisses

That cumber them too—

(O! how, without you, Love!

could angels be blest?)

Those kisses of true love

That lull'd ye to rest!

Up!—shake from your wing

Each hindering thing:

The dew of the night—

It would weigh down your flight;

And true love caresses—

O! leave them apart!

They are light on the tresses,

But lead on the heart.

Ligeia! Ligeia!

My beautiful one!

Whose harshest idea

Will to melody run,

O! is it thy will

On the breezes to toss?

Or, capriciously still,

Like the lone Albatross,

Incumbent on night

(As she on the air)

To keep watch with delight

On the harmony there?

Ligeia! wherever

Thy image may be,

No magic shall sever

Thy music from thee.

Thou hast bound many eyes

In a dreamy sleep—

But the strains still arise

Which thy vigilance keep—

The sound of the rain

Which leaps down to the flower,

And dances again

In the rhythm of the shower—

The murmur that springs

From the growing of grass

Are the music of things—

But are modell'd, alas!—

Away, then my dearest,

O! hie thee away

To springs that lie clearest

Beneath the moon-ray—

To lone lake that smiles,

In its dream of deep rest,

At the many star-isles

That enjewel its breast—

Where wild flowers, creeping,

Have mingled their shade,

On its margin is sleeping

Full many a maid—

Some have left the cool glade, and

Have slept with the bee—

Arouse them my maiden,

On moorland and lea—

Go! breathe on their slumber,

All softly in ear,

The musical number

They slumber'd to hear—

For what can awaken

An angel so soon

Whose sleep hath been taken

Beneath the cold moon,

As the spell which no slumber

Of witchery may test,

The rhythmical number

Which lull'd him to rest?"

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,

A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',

Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight—

Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light

That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar

O Death! from eye of God upon that star:

Sweet was that error—sweeter still that death—

Sweet was that error—ev'n with us the breath

Of science dims the mirror of our joy—

To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy—

For what (to them) availeth it to know

That Truth is Falsehood—or that Bliss is Woe?

Sweet was their death—with them to die was rife

With the last ecstasy of satiate life—

Beyond that death no immortality—

But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be"—

And there—oh! may my weary spirit dwell—

Apart from Heaven's Eternity—and yet how far from Hell!

What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,

Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?

But two: they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts

To those who hear not for their beating hearts.

A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover—

O! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)

Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?

Unguided Love hath fallen—'mid "tears of perfect moan."

He was a goodly spirit—he who fell:

A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well—

A gazer on the lights that shine above—

A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:

What wonder? for each star is eye-like there,

And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair—

And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy

To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.

The night had found (to him a night of wo)

Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo—

Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,

And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.

Here sate he with his love—his dark eye bent

With eagle gaze along the firmament:

Now turn'd it upon her—but ever then

It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.