Nature’s observatory — whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of humankind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
Song of Four Faeries - Fire, Air, Earth, and Water -
Salamander, Zephyr, Dusketha and Breama
SALAMANDER Happy, happy glowing fire!
ZEPHYR Fragrant air! delicious light!
DUSKETHA Let me to my glooms retire!
BREAMA I to greenweed rivers bright!
SALAMANDER Happy, happy glowing fire!
Dazzling bowers of soft retire,
Ever let my nourish’d wing,
Like a bat’s, still wandering.
Faintless fan your fiery spaces,
Spirit sole in deadly places.
In unhaunted roar and blaze,
Open eyes that never daze,
Let me see the myriad shapes
Of men, and beasts, and fish, and apes,
Portray’d in many a fiery den,
And wrought by spumy bitumen.
On the deep intenser roof,
Arched every way aloof,
Let me breathe upon their skies,
And anger their live tapestries;
Free from cold, and every care,
Of chilly rain, and shivering air.
ZEPHYR Spirit of Fire - away! away!
Or your very roundelay
Will sear my plumage newly budded
From its quilled sheath, all studded
With the selfsame dews that fell
On the May-grown Asphodel.
Spirit of Fire - away! away!
BREAMA Spirit of Fire - away! away!
Zephyr, blue-eyed Faery, turn,
And see my cool sedge-bury’d urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
‘Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,
Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen, when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will tease.
Love me, blue-eyed Faery, true!
Soothly I am sick for you.
ZEPHYR Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nurst,
I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometimes follow me
To my home, far, far, in west,
Beyond the nimble-wheeled quest
Of the golden-browed sun:
Come with me, o’er tops of trees.
To my fragrant palaces,
Where they ever floating are
Beneath the cherish of a star
Call’d Vesper, who with silver veil
Ever hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently-drows’d doth keep
Twilight for the Fayes to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there;
Clouds of stored summer rains
Thou shalt taste, before the stains
Of the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, crystal Faery, true!
Sooth I am as sick for you!
SALAMANDER Out, ye aguish Faeries, out!
Chilly lovers, what a rout
Keep ye with your frozen breath.
Colder than the mortal death.
Adder-eyed Dusketha, speak,
Shall we leave these, and go seek
In the earth’s wide entrails old
Couches warm as their’s are cold?
O for a fiery gloom and thee,
Dusketha, so enchantingly
Freckle-wing’d and lizard-sided!
DUSKETHA By thee, Sprite, will I be guided!
I care not for cold or heat;
Frost and flame, or sparks, or sleet,
To my essence are the same; -
But I honour more the flame.
Sprite of Fire, I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be,
To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earthquaked mountains;
Or, at thy supreme desire,
Touch the very pulse of fire
With my bare unlidded eyes.
SALAMANDER Sweet Dusketha! paradise!
Off, ye icy Spirits, fly!
Frosty creatures of the sky!
DUSKETHA Breathe upon them, fiery sprite!
ZEPHYR AND DUSKETHA Away! away to our delight!
SALAMANDER Go, feed on icicles, while we
Bedded in tongue-flames will be.
DUSKETHA Lead me to those feverous glooms,
Sprite of Fire!
BREAMA Me to the blooms,
Blue-eyed Zephyr, of those flowers
Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers:
And the beams of still Vesper, when winds are all wist,
Are shed thro’ the rain and the milder mist,
And twilight your floating bowers.
Fragment of an Ode to Maia,
Written on May Day, 1818
Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee