“The Witch of Atlas”

I.

1How, my dear Mary, — are you critic-bitten

2(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,

3That you condemn these verses I have written,

4Because they tell no story, false or true?

5What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,

6May it not leap and play as grown cats do,

7Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,

8Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

II.

9What hand would crush the silken-wingèd fly,

10The youngest of inconstant April’s minions,

11Because it cannot climb the purest sky,

12Where the swan sings, amid the sun’s dominions?

13Not thine. Thou knowest ’tis its doom to die,

14When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions

15The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,

16Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

III.

17To thy fair feet a wingèd Vision came,

18Whose date should have been longer than a day,

19And o’er thy head did beat its wings for fame,

20And in thy sight its fading plumes display;

21The watery bow burned in the evening flame,

22But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way —

23And that is dead. — O, let me not believe

24That anything of mine is fit to live!

IV.

25Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years

26Considering and retouching Peter Bell;

27Watering his laurels with the killing tears

28Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell

29Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres

30Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well

31May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil

32The over-busy gardener’s blundering toil.

V.

33My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature

34As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise

35Clothes for our grandsons — but she matches Peter,

36Though he took nineteen years, and she three days

37In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre

38She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,

39Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress

40Like King Lear’s "looped and windowed raggedness."

VI.

41If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow

42Scorched by Hell’s hyperequatorial climate

43Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:

44A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;

45In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.

46If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate

47Can shrive you of that sin, — if sin there be

48In love, when it becomes idolatry.

I.

49BEFORE those cruel Twins, whom at one birth

50Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,

51Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth

52All those bright natures which adorned its prime,

53And left us nothing to believe in, worth

54The pains of putting into learnèd rhyme,

55A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain

56Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.

II.

57Her mother was one of the Atlantides:

58The all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden

59In his wide voyage o’er continents and seas

60So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden

61In the warm shadow of her loveliness; —

62He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden

63The chamber of gray rock in which she lay —

64She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

III.

65’Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,

66And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

67Like splendour-wingèd moths about a taper,

68Round the red west when the sun dies in it:

69And then into a meteor, such as caper

70On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:

71Then, into one of those mysterious stars

72Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

IV.

73Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent

74Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden

75With that bright sign the billows to indent

76The sea-deserted sand — like children chidden,

77At her command they ever came and went —

78Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden

79Took shape and motion: with the living form

80Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.

V.

81A lovely lady garmented in light

82From her own beauty — deep her eyes, as are

83Two openings of unfathomable night

84Seen through a Temple’s cloven roof — her hair

85Dark — the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight,

86Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,

87And her low voice was heard like love, and drew

88All living things towards this wonder new.

VI.

89And first the spotted cameleopard came,

90And then the wise and fearless elephant;

91Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame

92Of his own volumes intervolved; — all gaunt

93And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.

94They drank before her at her sacred fount;

95And every beast of beating heart grew bold,

96Such gentleness and power even to behold.

VII.

97The brinded lioness led forth her young,

98That she might teach them how they should forego

99Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung

100His sinews at her feet, and sought to know

101With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue

102How he might be as gentle as the doe.

103The magic circle of her voice and eyes

104All savage natures did imparadise.

VIII.

105And old Silenus, shaking a green stick

106Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew

107Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick

108Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:

109And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,

110Teasing the God to sing them something new;

111Till in this cave they found the lady lone,

112Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

IX.

113And universal Pan, ’tis said, was there,

114And though none saw him, — through the adamant

115Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,

116And through those living spirits, like a want,

117He passed out of his everlasting lair

118Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,

119And felt that wondrous lady all alone, —

120And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

X.

121And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,

122And every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks,

123Who drives her white waves over the green sea,

124And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,

125And quaint Priapus with his company,

126All came, much wondering how the enwombèd rocks

127Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth; —

128Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

XI.

129The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,

130And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant —

131Their spirits shook within them, as a flame

132Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:

133Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,

134Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt

135Wet clefts, — and lumps neither alive nor dead,

136Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

XII.

137For she was beautiful — her beauty made

138The bright world dim, and everything beside

139Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:

140No thought of living spirit could abide,

141Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,

142On any object in the world so wide,

143On any hope within the circling skies,

144But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

XIII.

145Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle

146And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three

147Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle

148The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she

149As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle

150In the belated moon, wound skilfully;

151And with these threads a subtle veil she wove —

152A shadow for the splendour of her love.

XIV.

153The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling

154Were stored with magic treasures — sounds of air,

155Which had the power all spirits of compelling,

156Folded in cells of crystal silence there;

157Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling

158Will never die — yet ere we are aware,

159The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,

160And the regret they leave remains alone.

XV.

161And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,

162Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,

163Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint

164With the soft burthen of intensest bliss

165It was its work to bear to many a saint

166Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,

167Even Love’s: — and others white, green, gray, and black,

168And of all shapes — and each was at her beck.

XVI.

169And odours in a kind of aviary

170Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,

171Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy

172Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;

173As bats at the wired window of a dairy.

174They beat their vans; and each was an adept,

175When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,

176To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.

XVII.

177And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might

178Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,

179And change eternal death into a night

180Of glorious dreams — or if eyes needs must weep,

181Could make their tears all wonder and delight,

182She in her crystal vials did closely keep:

183If men could drink of those clear vials, ’tis said

184The living were not envied of the dead.

XVIII.

185Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,

186The works of some Saturnian Archimage,

187Which taught the expiations at whose price

188Men from the Gods might win that happy age

189Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;

190And which might quench the Earth-consuming rage

191Of gold and blood — till men should live and move

192Harmonious as the sacred stars above;

XIX.

193And how all things that seem untameable,

194Not to be checked and not to be confined,

195Obey the spells of Wisdom’s wizard skill;

196Time, earth, and fire — the ocean and the wind,

197And all their shapes — and man’s imperial will;

198And other scrolls whose writings did unbind

199The inmost lore of Love — let the profane

200Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.

XX.

201And wondrous works of substances unknown,

202To which the enchantment of her father’s power

203Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,

204Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;

205Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone

206In their own golden beams — each like a flower,

207Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light

208Under a cypress in a starless night.

XXI.

209At first she lived alone in this wild home,

210And her own thoughts were each a minister,

211Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,

212Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,

213To work whatever purposes might come

214Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire

215Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,

216Through all the regions which he shines upon.

XXII.

217The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,

218Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,

219Offered to do her bidding through the seas,

220Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,

221And far beneath the matted roots of trees,

222And in the gnarlèd heart of stubborn oaks,

223So they might live for ever in the light

224Of her sweet presence — each a satellite.

XXIII.

225"This may not be," the wizard maid replied;

226"The fountains where the Naiades bedew

227Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;

228The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew

229Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;

230The boundless ocean like a drop of dew

231Will be consumed — the stubborn centre must

232Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.

XXIV.

233"And ye with them will perish, one by one; —

234If I must sigh to think that this shall be,

235If I must weep when the surviving Sun

236Shall smile on your decay — oh, ask not me

237To love you till your little race is run;

238I cannot die as ye must — over me

239Your leaves shall glance — the streams in which ye dwell

240Shall be my paths henceforth, and so — farewell!" —

XXV.

241She spoke and wept: — the dark and azure well

242Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,

243And every little circlet where they fell

244Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres

245And intertangled lines of light: — a knell

246Of sobbing voices came upon her ears

247From those departing Forms, o’er the serene

248Of the white streams and of the forest green.

XXVI.

249All day the wizard lady sate aloof,

250Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,

251Under the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;

252Or broidering the pictured poesy

253Of some high tale upon her growing woof,

254Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye

255In hues outshining heaven — and ever she

256Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

XXVII.

257While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece

258Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;

259Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is —

260Each flame of it is as a precious stone

261Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this

262Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.

263The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand

264She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

XXVIII.

265This lady never slept, but lay in trance

266All night within the fountain — as in sleep.

267Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;

268Through the green splendour of the water deep

269She saw the constellations reel and dance

270Like fire-flies — and withal did ever keep

271The tenour of her contemplations calm,

272With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

XXIX.

273And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended

274From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,

275She passed at dewfall to a space extended,

276Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel

277Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,

278There yawned an inextinguishable well

279Of crimson fire — full even to the brim,

280And overflowing all the margin trim.

XXX.

281Within the which she lay when the fierce war

282Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor

283In many a mimic moon and bearded star

284O’er woods and lawns; — the serpent heard it flicker

285In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar —

286And when the windless snow descended thicker

287Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came

288Melt on the surface of the level flame.

XXXI.

289She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought

290For Venus, as the chariot of her star;

291But it was found too feeble to be fraught

292With all the ardours in that sphere which are,

293And so she sold it, and Apollo bought

294And gave it to this daughter: from a car

295Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat

296Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

XXXII.

297And others say, that, when but three hours old,

298The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,

299And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,

300And like an horticultural adept,

301Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,

302And sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept

303Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,

304And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

XXXIII.

305The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower

306Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began

307To turn the light and dew by inward power

308To its own substance; woven tracery ran

309Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er

310The solid rind, like a leaf’s veinèd fan —

311Of which Love scooped this boat — and with soft motion

312Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

XXXIV.

313This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit

314A living spirit within all its frame,

315Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.

316Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,

317One of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit —

318Or as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame —

319Or on blind Homer’s heart a wingèd thought, —

320In joyous expectation lay the boat.

XXXV.

321Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow

322Together, tempering the repugnant mass

323With liquid love — all things together grow

324Through which the harmony of love can pass;

325And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow —

326A living Image, which did far surpass

327In beauty that bright shape of vital stone

328Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

XXXVI.

329A sexless thing it was, and in its growth

330It seemed to have developed no defect

331Of either sex, yet all the grace of both, —

332In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;

333The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,

334The countenance was such as might select

335Some artist that his skill should never die,

336Imaging forth such perfect purity.

XXXVII.

337From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,

338Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,

339Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,

340Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:

341She led her creature to the boiling springs

342Where the light boat was moored, and said: "Sit here!"

343And pointed to the prow, and took her seat

344Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.

XXXVIII.

345And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,

346Around their inland islets, and amid

347The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast

348Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid

349In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;

350By many a star-surrounded pyramid

351Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,

352And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

XXXIX.

353The silver noon into that winding dell,

354With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,

355Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;

356A green and glowing light, like that which drops

357From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,

358When Earth over her face Night’s mantle wraps;

359Between the severed mountains lay on high,

360Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

XL.

361And ever as she went, the Image lay

362With folded wings and unawakened eyes;

363And o’er its gentle countenance did play

364The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,

365Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,

366And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs

367Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,

368They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

XLI.

369And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud

370Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:

371Now lingering on the pools, in which abode

372The calm and darkness of the deep content

373In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road

374Of white and dancing waters, all besprent

375With sand and polished pebbles: — mortal boat

376In such a shallow rapid could not float.

XLII.

377And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver

378Their snow-like waters into golden air,

379Or under chasms unfathomable ever

380Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear

381A subterranean portal for the river,

382It fled — the circling sunbows did upbear

383Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,

384Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

XLIII.

385And when the wizard lady would ascend

386The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,

387Which to the inmost mountain upward tend —

388She called "Hermaphroditus!" — and the pale

389And heavy hue which slumber could extend

390Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale

391A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,

392Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

XLIV.

393And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,

394With stars of fire spotting the stream below;

395And from above into the Sun’s dominions

396Flinging a glory, like the golden glow

397In which Spring clothes her emerald-wingèd minions,

398All interwoven with fine feathery snow

399And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,

400With which frost paints the pines in winter time.

XLV.

401And then it winnowed the Elysian air

402Which ever hung about that lady bright,

403With its aetherial vans — and speeding there,

404Like a star up the torrent of the night,

405Or a swift eagle in the morning glare

406Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,

407The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,

408Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

XLVI.

409The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow

410Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;

411The still air seemed as if its waves did flow

412In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven

413The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:

414Beneath, the billows having vainly striven

415Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel

416The swift and steady motion of the keel.

XLVII.

417Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,

418Or in the noon of interlunar night,

419The lady-witch in visions could not chain

420Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light

421Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain

422Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;

423She to the Austral waters took her way,

424Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana, —

XLVIII.

425Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,

426Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,

427With the Antarctic constellations paven,

428Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake —

429There she would build herself a windless haven

430Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make

431The bastions of the storm, when through the sky

432The spirits of the tempest thundered by:

XLIX.

433A haven beneath whose translucent floor

434The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,

435And around which the solid vapours hoar,

436Based on the level waters, to the sky

437Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore

438Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly

439Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,

440And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

L.

441And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash

442Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,

443And the incessant hail with stony clash

444Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing

445Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash

446Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering

447Fragment of inky thunder-smoke — this haven

448Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven, —

LI.

449On which that lady played her many pranks,

450Circling the image of a shooting star,

451Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks

452Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,

453In her light boat; and many quips and cranks

454She played upon the water, till the car

455Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,

456To journey from the misty east began.

LII.

457And then she called out of the hollow turrets

458Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

459The armies of her ministering spirits —

460In mighty legions, million after million,

461They came, each troop emblazoning its merits

462On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion

463Of the intertexture of the atmosphere

464They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

LIII.

465They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen

466Of woven exhalations, underlaid

467With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen

468A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid

469With crimson silk — cressets from the serene

470Hung there, and on the water for her tread

471A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,

472Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

LIV.

473And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught

474Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,

475Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,

476She sate, and heard all that had happened new

477Between the earth and moon, since they had brought

478The last intelligence — and now she grew

479Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night —

480And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.

LV.

481These were tame pleasures; she would often climb

482The steepest ladder of the crudded rack

483Up to some beakèd cape of cloud sublime,

484And like Arion on the dolphin’s back

485Ride singing through the shoreless air; — oft-time

486Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,

487She ran upon the platforms of the wind,

488And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

LVI.

489And sometimes to those streams of upper air

490Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,

491She would ascend, and win the spirits there

492To let her join their chorus. Mortals found

493That on those days the sky was calm and fair,

494And mystic snatches of harmonious sound

495Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed,

496And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

LVII.

497But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,

498To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads

499Egypt and AEthiopia, from the steep

500Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,

501Like a calm flock of silver-fleecèd sheep,

502His waters on the plain: and crested heads

503Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,

504And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

LVIII.

505By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,

506Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,

507Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,

508Or charioteering ghastly alligators,

509Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes

510Of those huge forms — within the brazen doors

511Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,

512Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

LIX.

513And where within the surface of the river

514The shadows of the massy temples lie,

515And never are erased — but tremble ever

516Like things which every cloud can doom to die,

517Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever

518The works of man pierced that serenest sky

519With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight

520To wander in the shadow of the night.

LX.

521With motion like the spirit of that wind

522Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet

523Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,

524Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,

525Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined

526With many a dark and subterranean street

527Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep

528She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.

LXI.

529A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see

530Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.

531Here lay two sister twins in infancy;

532There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;

533Within, two lovers linkèd innocently

534In their loose locks which over both did creep

535Like ivy from one stem; — and there lay calm

536Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

LXII.

537But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,

538Not to be mirrored in a holy song —

539Distortions foul of supernatural awe,

540And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;

541And all the code of Custom’s lawless law

542Written upon the brows of old and young:

543"This," said the wizard maiden, "is the strife

544Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life."

LXIII.

545And little did the sight disturb her soul. —

546We, the weak mariners of that wide lake

547Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,

548Our course unpiloted and starless make

549O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal: —

550But she in the calm depths her way could take,

551Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide

552Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.

LXIV.

553And she saw princes couched under the glow

554Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court

555In dormitories ranged, row after row,

556She saw the priests asleep — all of one sort —

557For all were educated to be so. —

558The peasants in their huts, and in the port

559The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,

560And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.

LXV.

561And all the forms in which those spirits lay

562Were to her sight like the diaphanous

563Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array

564Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us

565Only their scorn of all concealment: they

566Move in the light of their own beauty thus.

567But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,

568And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

LXVI.

569She, all those human figures breathing there,

570Beheld as living spirits — to her eyes

571The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,

572And often through a rude and worn disguise

573She saw the inner form most bright and fair —

574And then she had a charm of strange device,

575Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,

576Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

LXVII.

577Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given

578For such a charm when Tithon became gray?

579Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven

580Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina

581Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven

582Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,

583To any witch who would have taught you it?

584The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

LXVIII.

585’Tis said in after times her spirit free

586Knew what love was, and felt itself alone —

587But holy Dian could not chaster be

588Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,

589Than now this lady — like a sexless bee

590Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none,

591Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden

592Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

LXIX.

593To those she saw most beautiful, she gave

594Strange panacea in a crystal bowl: —

595They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,

596And lived thenceforward as if some control,

597Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave

598Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,

599Was as a green and overarching bower

600Lit by the gems of many a starry flower.

LXX.

601For on the night when they were buried, she

602Restored the embalmers’ ruining, and shook

603The light out of the funeral lamps, to be

604A mimic day within that deathly nook;

605And she unwound the woven imagery

606Of second childhood’s swaddling bands, and took

607The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,

608And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

LXXI.

609And there the body lay, age after age,

610Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,

611Like one asleep in a green hermitage,

612With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,

613And living in its dreams beyond the rage

614Of death or life; while they were still arraying

615In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind

616And fleeting generations of mankind.

LXXII.

617And she would write strange dreams upon the brain

618Of those who were less beautiful, and make

619All harsh and crooked purposes more vain

620Than in the desert is the serpent’s wake

621Which the sand covers — all his evil gain

622The miser in such dreams would rise and shake

623Into a beggar’s lap; — the lying scribe

624Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

LXXIII.

625The priests would write an explanation full,

626Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,

627How the God Apis really was a bull,

628And nothing more; and bid the herald stick

629The same against the temple doors, and pull

630The old cant down; they licensed all to speak

631What’er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,

632By pastoral letters to each diocese.

LXXIV.

633The king would dress an ape up in his crown

634And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,

635And on the right hand of the sunlike throne

636Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat

637The chatterings of the monkey. — Every one

638Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet

639Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,

640And kissed — alas, how many kiss the same!

LXXV.

641The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and

642Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;

643Round the red anvils you might see them stand

644Like Cyclopses in Vulcan’s sooty abysm,

645Beating their swords to ploughshares; — in a band

646The jailors sent those of the liberal schism

647Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,

648To the annoyance of king Amasis.

LXXVI.

649And timid lovers who had been so coy,

650They hardly knew whether they loved or not,

651Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,

652To the fulfillment of their inmost thought;

653And when next day the maiden and the boy

654Met one another, both, like sinners caught,

655Blushed at the thing which each believed was done

656Only in fancy — till the tenth moon shone;

LXXVII.

657And then the Witch would let them take no ill:

658Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,

659The Witch found one, — and so they took their fill

660Of happiness in marriage warm and kind.

661Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,

662Were torn apart — a wide wound, mind from mind! —

663She did unite again with visions clear

664Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

LXXVIII.

665These were the pranks she played among the cities

666Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites

667And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties

668To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,

669I will declare another time; for it is

670A tale more fit for the weird winter nights

671Than for these garish summer days, when we

672Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

“The Witch of Atlas”

Percy Bysshe Shelley