The Witch Of Atlas

TO

RY (ON

ER

NG TO

HE

NG

EM,

ON

HE

RE OF

TS

NG NO

AN

ST)I.

How, my dear Mary, -- are you critic-bitten  (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,

That you condemn these verses I have written,  Because they tell no story, false or true?

What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,  May it not leap and play as grown cats do,

Till its claws come?

Prithee, for this one time,

Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

II.

What hand would crush the silken-wingèd fly,  The youngest of inconstant April's minions,

Because it cannot climb the purest sky,  Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?

Not thine.

Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die,  When Day shall hide within her twilight

The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,

Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

II.

To thy fair feet a wingèd Vision came,  Whose date should have been longer than a day,

And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame,  And in thy sight its fading plumes display;

The watery bow burned in the evening flame,  But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way—And that is dead.—O, let me not

That anything of mine is fit to live!

IV.

Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years  Considering and retouching Peter Bell;

Watering his laurels with the killing tears  Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to

Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres  Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this

May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to

The over-busy gardener's blundering toil.

V.

My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature  As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful

Clothes for our grandsons—but she matches Peter,  Though he took nineteen years, and she three

In dressing.

Light the vest of flowing metre  She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,

Has hung upon his wiry limbs a

Like King Lear's 'looped and windowed raggedness.'VI.

If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow  Scorched by Hell's hyperequatorial

Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:  A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;

In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.  If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor

Can shrive you of that sin, -- if sin there

In love, when it becomes idolatry.

HE

CH OF

AS.

I.

Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth  Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,

Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth  All those bright natures which adorned its prime,

And left us nothing to believe in, worth  The pains of putting into learnèd rhyme,

A lady-witch there lived on Atlas'

Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.

II.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides:  The all-beholding Sun had ne'er

In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas  So fair a creature, as she lay

In the warm shadow of her loveliness;--  He kissed her with his beams, and made all

The chamber of gray rock in which she lay--She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

II.'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,  And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

Like splendour-wingèd moths about a taper,  Round the red west when the sun dies in it:

And then into a meteor, such as caper  On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:

Then, into one of those mysterious

Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

IV.

Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent  Her bow beside the folding-star, and

With that bright sign the billows to indent  The sea-deserted sand -- like children chidden,

At her command they ever came and went--  Since in that cave a dewy splendour

Took shape and motion: with the living

Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.

V.

A lovely lady garmented in light  From her own beauty -- deep her eyes, as

Two openings of unfathomable night  Seen through a Temple's cloven roof -- her

Dark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight,  Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,

And her low voice was heard like love, and

All living things towards this wonder new.

VI.

And first the spotted cameleopard came,  And then the wise and fearless elephant;

Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame  Of his own volumes intervolved -- all

And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.  They drank before her at her sacred fount;

And every beast of beating heart grew bold,

Such gentleness and power even to behold.

II.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,  That she might teach them how they should

Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung  His sinews at her feet, and sought to

With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue  How he might be as gentle as the doe.

The magic circle of her voice and

All savage natures did imparadise.

II.

And old Silenus, shaking a green stick  Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a

Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick  Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:

And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,  Teasing the God to sing them something new;

Till in this cave they found the lady lone,

Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

IX.

And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there,  And though none saw him,—through the

Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,  And through those living spirits, like a want,

He passed out of his everlasting lair  Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,

And felt that wondrous lady all alone,—And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

X.

And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,  And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks,

Who drives her white waves over the green sea,  And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,

And quaint Priapus with his company,  All came, much wondering how the enwombèd

Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

XI.

The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,  And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant—Their spirits shook within them, as a flame  Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:

Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,  Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as

Wet clefts,—and lumps neither alive nor dead,

Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

II.

For she was beautiful—her beauty made  The bright world dim, and everything

Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:  No thought of living spirit could abide,

Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,  On any object in the world so wide,

On any hope within the circling skies,

But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

II.

Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle  And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and

Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle  The clouds and waves and mountains with; and

As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle  In the belated moon, wound skilfully;

And with these threads a subtle veil she wove—A shadow for the splendour of her love.

IV.

The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling  Were stored with magic treasures—sounds of air,

Which had the power all spirits of compelling,  Folded in cells of crystal silence there;

Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling  Will never die—yet ere we are aware,

The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,

And the regret they leave remains alone.

XV.

And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,  Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,

Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint  With the soft burthen of intensest

It was its work to bear to many a saint  Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,

Even Love's -- and others white, green, gray, and black,

And of all shapes—and each was at her beck.

VI.

And odours in a kind of aviary  Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,

Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy  Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;

As bats at the wired window of a dairy.  They beat their vans; and each was an adept,

When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,

To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.

II.

And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might  Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,

And change eternal death into a night  Of glorious dreams—or if eyes needs must weep,

Could make their tears all wonder and delight,  She in her crystal vials did closely keep:

If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis

The living were not envied of the dead.

II.

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,  The works of some Saturnian Archimage,

Which taught the expiations at whose price  Men from the Gods might win that happy

Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;  And which might quench the Earth-consuming

Of gold and blood—till men should live and

Harmonious as the sacred stars above;

IX.

And how all things that seem untameable,  Not to be checked and not to be confined,

Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill;  Time, earth, and fire—the ocean and the wind,

And all their shapes -- and man's imperial will;  And other scrolls whose writings did

The inmost lore of Love—let the

Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.

XX.

And wondrous works of substances unknown,  To which the enchantment of her father's

Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,  Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;

Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone  In their own golden beams -- each like a flower,

Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his

Under a cypress in a starless night.

XI.

At first she lived alone in this wild home,  And her own thoughts were each a minister,

Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,  Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,

To work whatever purposes might come  Into her mind; such power her mighty

Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,

Through all the regions which he shines upon.

II.

The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,  Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,

Offered to do her bidding through the seas,  Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,

And far beneath the matted roots of trees,  And in the gnarlèd heart of stubborn oaks,

So they might live for ever in the

Of her sweet presence -- each a satellite.

II.'This may not be,' the wizard maid replied;  'The fountains where the Naiades

Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;  The solid oaks forget their strength, and

Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;  The boundless ocean like a drop of

Will be consumed—the stubborn centre

Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.

IV.'And ye with them will perish, one by one;—  If I must sigh to think that this shall be,

If I must weep when the surviving Sun  Shall smile on your decay -- oh, ask not

To love you till your little race is run;  I cannot die as ye must -- over

Your leaves shall glance -- the streams in which ye

Shall be my paths henceforth, and so --

XV.

She spoke and wept:—the dark and azure well  Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,

And every little circlet where they fell  Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant

And intertangled lines of light:—a knell  Of sobbing voices came upon her

From those departing Forms, o'er the

Of the white streams and of the forest green.

VI.

All day the wizard lady sate aloof,  Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,

Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;  Or broidering the pictured

Of some high tale upon her growing woof,  Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could

In hues outshining heaven—and ever

Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

II.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece  Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;

Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is—  Each flame of it is as a precious

Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this  Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.

The Witch beheld it not, for in her

She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

II.

This lady never slept, but lay in trance  All night within the fountain -- as in sleep.

Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance;  Through the green splendour of the water

She saw the constellations reel and dance  Like fire-flies -- and withal did ever

The tenour of her contemplations calm,

With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

IX.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended  From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,

She passed at dewfall to a space extended,  Where in a lawn of flowering

Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,  There yawned an inextinguishable

Of crimson fire—full even to the brim,

And overflowing all the margin trim.

XX.

Within the which she lay when the fierce war  Of wintry winds shook that innocuous

In many a mimic moon and bearded star  O'er woods and lawns -- the serpent heard it

In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar--  And when the windless snow descended

Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it

Melt on the surface of the level flame.

XI.

She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought  For Venus, as the chariot of her star;

But it was found too feeble to be fraught  With all the ardours in that sphere which are,

And so she sold it, and Apollo bought  And gave it to this daughter: from a

Changed to the fairest and the lightest

Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

II.

And others say, that, when but three hours old,  The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,

And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,  And like an horticultural adept,

Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,  And sowed it in his mother's star, and

Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,

And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

II.

The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower  Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit

To turn the light and dew by inward power  To its own substance; woven tracery

Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er  The solid rind, like a leaf's veinèd fan--Of which Love scooped this boat -- and with soft

Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

IV.

This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit  A living spirit within all its frame,

Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.  Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,

One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit--  Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame--Or on blind Homer's heart a wingèd thought,--In joyous expectation lay the boat.

XV.

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow  Together, tempering the repugnant

With liquid love -- all things together grow  Through which the harmony of love can pass;

And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow--  A living Image, which did far

In beauty that bright shape of vital

Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

VI.

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth  It seemed to have developed no

Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,--  In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;

The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,  The countenance was such as might

Some artist that his skill should never die,

Imaging forth such perfect purity.

II.

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,  Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,

Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,  Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:

She led her creature to the boiling springs  Where the light boat was moored, and said: 'Sit here!'And pointed to the prow, and took her

Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.

II.

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,  Around their inland islets, and

The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast  Darkness and odours, and a pleasure

In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;  By many a star-surrounded

Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,

And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

IX.

The silver noon into that winding dell,  With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,

Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;  A green and glowing light, like that which

From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,  When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;

Between the severed mountains lay on high,

Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

XL.

And ever as she went, the Image lay  With folded wings and unawakened eyes;

And o'er its gentle countenance did play  The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,

Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,  And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet

Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,

They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

LI.

And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud  Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:

Now lingering on the pools, in which abode  The calm and darkness of the deep

In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road  Of white and dancing waters, all

With sand and polished pebbles:—mortal

In such a shallow rapid could not float.

II.

And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver  Their snow-like waters into golden air,

Or under chasms unfathomable ever  Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tearA subterranean portal for the river,  It fled—the circling sunbows did

Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,

Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

II.

And when the wizard lady would ascend  The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,

Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—  She called 'Hermaphroditus!'—and the

And heavy hue which slumber could extend  Over its lips and eyes, as on the galeA rapid shadow from a slope of grass,

Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

IV.

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,  With stars of fire spotting the stream below;

And from above into the Sun's dominions  Flinging a glory, like the golden

In which Spring clothes her emerald-wingèd minions,  All interwoven with fine feathery

And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,

With which frost paints the pines in winter time.

LV.

And then it winnowed the Elysian air  Which ever hung about that lady bright,

With its aethereal vans—and speeding there,  Like a star up the torrent of the night,

Or a swift eagle in the morning glare  Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,

The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,

Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

VI.

The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow  Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;

The still air seemed as if its waves did flow  In tempest down the mountains; loosely

The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro:  Beneath, the billows having vainly

Indignant and impetuous, roared to

The swift and steady motion of the keel.

II.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,  Or in the noon of interlunar night,

The lady-witch in visions could not chain  Her spirit; but sailed forth under the

Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain  Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;

She to the Austral waters took her way,

Beyond the fabulous

II.

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,  Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,

With the Antarctic constellations paven,  Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake—There she would build herself a windless haven  Out of the clouds whose moving turrets

The bastions of the storm, when through the

The spirits of the tempest thundered by:

IX.

A haven beneath whose translucent floor  The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,

And around which the solid vapours hoar,  Based on the level waters, to the

Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore  Of wintry mountains,

Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,

And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

L.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash  Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,

And the incessant hail with stony clash  Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging

Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash  Looked like the wreck of some

Fragment of inky thunder-smoke -- this

Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,--LI.

On which that lady played her many pranks,  Circling the image of a shooting star,

Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks  Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,

In her light boat; and many quips and cranks  She played upon the water, till the

Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,

To journey from the misty east began.

II.

And then she called out of the hollow turrets  Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

The armies of her ministering spirits—  In mighty legions, million after million,

They came, each troop emblazoning its merits  On meteor flags; and many a proud

Of the intertexture of the

They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

II.

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen  Of woven exhalations,

With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen  A dome of thin and open ivory

With crimson silk -- cressets from the serene  Hung there, and on the water for her treadA tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,

Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

IV.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught  Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,

Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,  She sate, and heard all that had happened

Between the earth and moon, since they had brought  The last intelligence -- and now she

Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night--And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.

LV.

These were tame pleasures; she would often climb  The steepest ladder of the crudded

Up to some beakèd cape of cloud sublime,  And like Arion on the dolphin's

Ride singing through the shoreless air; -- oft-time  Following the serpent lightning's winding track,

She ran upon the platforms of the wind,

And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

VI.

And sometimes to those streams of upper air  Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,

She would ascend, and win the spirits there  To let her join their chorus.

Mortals

That on those days the sky was calm and fair,  And mystic snatches of harmonious

Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed,

And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

II.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,  To glide adown old Nilus, where he

Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep  Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,

Like a calm flock of silver-fleecèd sheep,  His waters on the plain: and crested

Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,

And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

II.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,  Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,

Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,  Or charioteering ghastly alligators,

Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes  Of those huge forms -- within the brazen

Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,

Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

IX.

And where within the surface of the river  The shadows of the massy temples lie,

And never are erased -- but tremble ever  Like things which every cloud can doom to die,

Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever  The works of man pierced that serenest

With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her

To wander in the shadow of the night.

LX.

With motion like the spirit of that wind  Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light

Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,  Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,

Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined  With many a dark and subterranean

Under the Nile, through chambers high and

She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.

XI.

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see  Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.

Here lay two sister twins in infancy;  There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;

Within, two lovers linkèd innocently  In their loose locks which over both did

Like ivy from one stem;—and there lay

Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

II.

But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,  Not to be mirrored in a holy song--Distortions foul of supernatural awe,  And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;

And all the code of Custom's lawless law  Written upon the brows of old and young:'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the

Which stirs the liquid surface of man's

II.

And little did the sight disturb her soul.--  We, the weak mariners of that wide

Where'er its shores extend or billows roll,  Our course unpiloted and starless makeO'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:--  But she in the calm depths her way could take,

Where in bright bowers immortal forms

Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.

IV.

And she saw princes couched under the glow  Of sunlike gems; and round each

In dormitories ranged, row after row,  She saw the priests asleep—all of one sort--For all were educated to be so.—  The peasants in their huts, and in the

The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,

And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.

XV.

And all the forms in which those spirits lay  Were to her sight like the

Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array  Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from

Only their scorn of all concealment: they  Move in the light of their own beauty thus.

But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,

And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

VI.

She, all those human figures breathing there,  Beheld as living spirits -- to her

The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,  And often through a rude and worn

She saw the inner form most bright and fair--  And then she had a charm of strange device,

Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,

Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

II.

Alas!

Aurora, what wouldst thou have given  For such a charm when Tithon became gray?

Or how much,

Venus, of thy silver heaven  Wouldst thou have yielded, ere

Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven  Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,

To any witch who would have taught you it?

The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

II.'Tis said in after times her spirit free  Knew what love was, and felt itself alone--But holy Dian could not chaster be  Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,

Than now this lady -- like a sexless bee  Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none,

Among those mortal forms, the

Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

IX.

To those she saw most beautiful, she gave  Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:--They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,  And lived thenceforward as if some control,

Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave  Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,

Was as a green and overarching

Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.

XX.

For on the night when they were buried, she  Restored the embalmers' ruining, and

The light out of the funeral lamps, to be  A mimic day within that deathy nook;

And she unwound the woven imagery  Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and

The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,

And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

XI.

And there the body lay, age after age,  Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,

Like one asleep in a green hermitage,  With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,

And living in its dreams beyond the rage  Of death or life; while they were still

In liveries ever new, the rapid,

And fleeting generations of mankind.

II.

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain  Of those who were less beautiful, and

All harsh and crooked purposes more vain  Than in the desert is the serpent's

Which the sand covers—all his evil gain  The miser in such dreams would rise and

Into a beggar's lap;—the lying

Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

II.

The priests would write an explanation full,  Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,

How the God Apis really was a bull,  And nothing more; and bid the herald

The same against the temple doors, and pull  The old cant down; they licensed all to

What'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,

By pastoral letters to each diocese.

IV.

The king would dress an ape up in his crown  And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,

And on the right hand of the sunlike throne  Would place a gaudy mock-bird to

The chatterings of the monkey.—Every one  Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the

Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,

And kissed -- alas, how many kiss the same!

XV.

The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and  Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;

Round the red anvils you might see them stand  Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,

Beating their swords to ploughshares; -- in a band  The gaolers sent those of the liberal

Free through the streets of Memphis, much,

I wis,

To the annoyance of king Amasis.

VI.

And timid lovers who had been so coy,  They hardly knew whether they loved or not,

Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,  To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;

And when next day the maiden and the boy  Met one another, both, like sinners caught,

Blushed at the thing which each believed was

Only in fancy -- till the tenth moon shone;

II.

And then the Witch would let them take no ill:  Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,

The Witch found one,—and so they took their fill  Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.

Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,  Were torn apart -- a wide wound, mind from mind!--She did unite again with visions

Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

II.

These were the pranks she played among the cities  Of mortal men, and what she did to

And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties  To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,

I will declare another time; for it is  A tale more fit for the weird winter

Than for these garish summer days, when

Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa,

August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, ed.

Mrs.

Shelley, 1824.

The dedication To Mary first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.

Note by Mrs.

Shelley: 'We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa.

These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his nervous irritability.

We made several excursions in the neighbourhood.

The country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The peasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we visited cheerful and bright.

During some of the hottest days of August,

Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte San Pellegrino -- a mountain of some height, on the top of which there is a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many pilgrimages.

The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lsasitude and weakness on his return.

During the expedition he conceived the idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his return, the Witch of Atlas.

This poem is peculiarly characteristic of his tastes -- wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and discarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas that his imagination suggested.'