Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/405

Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, 365
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

xli

And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud

Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: 370
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent
With sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat 375
In such a shallow rapid could not float.

xlii

And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver

Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear 380
A subterranean portal for the river,
It fled—the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

xlii

And when the wizard lady would ascend 385

The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—
She called 'Hermaphroditus!'—and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale 390
A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

xliv

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,

With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
And from above into the Sun's dominions 395
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.400

xlv

And then it winnowed the Elysian air

Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vans—and speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,