The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest A dwarflike Cato cower'd. On the other side Hortensia spoke against the tax; behind, A train of dames: by axe and eagle sat, With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, The fierce triumvirs; and before them paused I saw the forms: I knew not where I was: Strange phantoms conjured out of circumstance, Ghosts of the fading brain, they seem'd; nor more Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: the dew Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape And rounder show'd: I moved: I sigh'd: a touch Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : Then all for languor and self-pity ran Mine down my face, and with what life I had, And like a flower that cannot all unfold, So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 'If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, I would but ask you to fulfil yourself: But if you be that Ida whom I knew, I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. I could no more, but lay like one in trance, That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd; she paused ; She stoop'd; and out of languor leapt a cry ; Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death; Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, And left her woman, lovelier in her mood Than in her mould that other, when she came From barren deeps to conquer all with love; And down the streaming crystal dropt; and she Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, Naked, a double light in air and wave, To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out For worship without end; nor end of mine, Stateliest, for thee! but mute she glided forth, Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. Deep in the night I woke: she, near me, held A volume of the Poets of her land: There to herself, all in low tones, she read. Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip I heard her turn the page; she found a small Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? M But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the Silver Horns, To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill That like a broken purpose waste in air : |