Belted Orion hangs—warm light is flowing
From the young moon into the sunset’s chasm.—
‘O, summer eve! with power divine, bestowing
‘On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm _200
Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,
Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm
‘Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness,
Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale,—
And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,— _205
‘And the far sighings of yon piny dale
Made vocal by some wind we feel not here.—
I bear alone what nothing may avail
‘To lighten—a strange load!’—No human ear
Heard this lament; but o’er the visage wan _210
Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere
Of dark emotion, a swift shadow, ran,
Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
Glassy and dark.—And that divine old man
Beheld his mystic friend’s whole being shake, _215
Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest—
And with a calm and measured voice he spake,
And, with a soft and equal pressure, pressed
That cold lean hand:—‘Dost thou remember yet
When the curved moon then lingering in the west _220
‘Paused, in yon waves her mighty horns to wet,
How in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea?
’Tis just one year—sure thou dost not forget—
‘Then Plato’s words of light in thee and me
Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east, _225
For we had just then read—thy memory