Sunlight, starlight or the moon,
Stormlight, firelight or the sheening
Witchlight intimate no meaning
Of her glory’s plenilune;
Of her soul’s unriddled rune,
And most awful beauty! nor
Actual, nor yet ideal!—
Insubstantial and yet real;
Partly flame and partly star,
Yet no part of what these are.
I am hers and—woe is mine!...
Has she drugged me with the sadness
Of some elemental madness?—
Like a demigod I pine
’Twixt the mortal and divine....
When I see her, lo, she stands
In the luminous electre
Of a star: a smiling spectre
With white scintillating hands
Luring to unhallowed lands.
Then, behold, in fearful file,
A mirage of tower and terrace,
Lawn and mountain range,—that buries
Flame in frost,—looms! mile on mile
Of her crescent-glowing Isle:
Where the lurid waters lull
Shores that roll the rainbow fire;
Where, with living lute and lyre,
Rose-red, swiftly as a gull,
Glides her star-like galley’s hull.
And, behold, before I know,
I am where her walls of amber,
Towers of limpid ruby, clamber
Over terraces below
Summits of refulgent snow.
Lambent lazuli and shell
Colonnade her courts of marble;
Where, of lightning, fountains warble
Out of basined pearl, or well
Into hollowed carbuncle.
Rosy silver seems her skin,
And a flame her arm commanding,
With its gleaming hand, me, standing
At her gates, to enter in,
Burning as a Seraphin.
Lucid darkness are her eyes,
Where the frozen fire smolders;
And upon her shining shoulders,
Like a tangible glitter, lies
Auburn hair like sunset skies.