Page:Prometheus Unbound - Shelley.djvu/95

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SPIRIT
                                      Alas! it could not

PANTHEA
      O Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light
      Which fills the cloud? the sun is yet unrisen.

SPIRIT
      The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
      Is held in heaven by wonder; and the light
      Which fills this vapor, as the aërial hue
      Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
      Flows from thy mighty sister.

PANTHEA
                                     Yes, I feel--

ASIA
      What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.

PANTHEA
      How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
      I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
      The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
      Is working in the elements, which suffer
      Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell
      That on the day when the clear hyaline
      Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand
      Within a veinèd shell, which floated on
      Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
      Among the Ægean isles, and by the shores
      Which bear thy name,--love, like the atmosphere
      Of the sun's fire filling the living world,
      Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven
      And the deep ocean and the sunless caves