Al Aaraaf（第4/4页）

"Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray!

How lovely 'tis to look so far away!

She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve

I left her gorgeous halls—nor mourn'd to leave.

That eve—that eve—I should remember well—

The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell

On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall

Wherein I sate, and on the drapried wall—

And on my eye-lids—O the heavy light!

How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!

On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran

With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:

But O that light!—I slumber'd—Death, the while,

Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle

So softly that no single silken hair

Awoke that slept—or knew that he was there.

The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon

Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon—

More beauty clung around her column'd wall

Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,

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.

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 wish'd 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 yon world above,

And women's loveliness—and passionate love."

"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft

Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,

Perhaps my brain grew dizzy—but the world

I left so late was into chaos hurl'd—

Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,

And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.

Methought, my sweet one, then I ceasd to soar

And fell—not swiftly as I rose before,

But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'

Light, 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.

"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 grey Time unfurl'd

Never his fairy wing o'er fairier 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 swell'd upon the sky,

As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,

We paus'd 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.

(1829)