Where is thy lovely perilous abode? In what strange phantom-land Glimmer the fairy turrets whereto rode The ill-starred poet band? Say, in the Isle of Youth hast thou thy home, The sweetest singer there, Stealing on winged steed across the foam Athrough the moonlit air? And by the gloomy peaks of Erigal, Haunted by storm and cloud, Wing past, and to thy lover there let fall His singing robe and shroud? Or, where the mists of bluebell float beneath The red stems of the pine, And sunbeams strike thro' shadow, dost thou breathe The word that makes him thine? Or, is thy palace entered thro' some cliff When radiant tides are full, And round thy lover's wandering, starlit skiff Coil in luxurious lull? And would he, entering on the brimming flood, See caverns vast in height, And diamond columns, crowned with leaf and bud, Glow in long lanes of light. And there, the pearl of that great glittering shell, Trembling, behold thee lone, Now weaving in slow dance an awful spell, Now still upon thy throne? Thy beauty! ah, the eyes that pierce him thro' Then melt as in a dream; The voice that sings the mysteries of the blue And all that Be and Seem! Thy lovely motions answering to the rhyme That ancient Nature sings, That keeps the stars in cadence for all time, And echoes thro' all things! Whether he sees thee thus, or in his dreams, Thy light makes all lights dim; An aching solitude from henceforth seems The world of men to him. Thy luring song, above the sensuous roar, He follows with delight, Shutting behind him Life's last gloomy door, And fares into the Night. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AND SO, I THINK DIOGENES by AMY LOWELL LOVE IN BLACK AND WHITE by KAREN SWENSON KUBLA KHAN by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE BLACK RIDERS: 38 by STEPHEN CRANE THE REALM OF FANCY by JOHN KEATS FRINGED GENTIANS by AMY LOWELL THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 83. BARREN SPRING by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |