Far, through the crystal lymph, the pillar'd halls4
Went lengthening on in vista'd majesty;
The waters sapp'd not the enchanted walls,
Nor shut their roofless silence from the sky;
But every beam that lights this world of ours
Broke sparkling downward into diamond showers.
And the strange magic of the place bestow'd5
Its own strange life upon the startled King,
Round him, like air, the subtle waters flow'd;
As round the Naiad flows her native spring;
Domelike collapsed the azure;—moonlight clear
Fill'd the melodious silvery atmosphere—
Melodious with the chaunt of distant falls6
Of sportive waves, within the waves at play,
And infant springs that bubble up the halls
Through sparry founts (on which the broken ray
Weaves its slight iris), hymning while they rise
To that smooth calm their restless life supplies,
Like secret thoughts in some still poet's soul,7
That swell the deep while yearning to the stars:—
But overhead a trembling shadow stole,
A gloom that leaf-like quiver'd on the spars,
And that quick shadow, ever moving, fell
From a vast Tree with root immoveable;
In link'd arcades, and interwoven bowers8
Swept the long forest from that single stem!
And, flashing through the foliage, fruits or flowers
In jewell'd clusters, glow'd with every gem
Golgonda hideth from the greed of kings;
Or Lybian gryphons guard with drowsy wings.
Here blush'd the ruby, warm as Charity,9
There the mild topaz, wrath-assuaging, shone
Radiant as Mercy; like an angel's eye,
Or a stray splendour from the Father's throne
The sapphire chaste a heavenly lustre gave
To that blue heaven reflected on the wave.
Never from India's cave, or Oman's sea10
Swart Afrite stole for scornful Peri's brow,
Such gems as, wasted on that Wonder-tree,
Paled Sheban treasures in each careless bough;
And every bough the gliding wavelet heaves,
Quivers to music with the quivering leaves.
Then first the Sovereign Lady of the deep11
Spoke;—and the waves and whispering leaves wore still,
"Ever I rise before the eyes that weep
When, born from sorrow, Wisdom wakes the will;
But few behold the shadow through the dark,
And few will dare the venture of the bark.
"And now amid the Cuthites' temple halls12
O'er which the waters undestroying flow,
Heark'ning the mysteries hymn'd from silver falls
Or from the springs that, gushing up below,
Gleam to the surface, whence to Heaven updrawn,
They form the clouds that harbinger the Dawn,—
"Say what the treasures which my deeps enfold13
That thou would'st bear to the terrestrial day?"
Then Arthur answer'd—and his quest he told,
The prophet mission which his steps obey—
"Here springs the forest from the single stem:
I seek the falchion welded from the gem!"