Chapter 2
54. And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, _475 She sate, and heard all that had happened new Between the earth and moon, since they had brought The last intelligence--and now she grew Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night-- And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. _480
55. These were tame pleasures; she would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, And like Arion on the dolphin's back Ride singing through the shoreless air;--oft-time _485 Following the serpent lightning's winding track, She ran upon the platforms of the wind, And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.
56. And sometimes to those streams of upper air Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, _490 She would ascend, and win the spirits there To let her join their chorus. Mortals found That on those days the sky was calm and fair, And mystic snatches of harmonious sound Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed, _495 And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
57. But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, _500 Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep, His waters on the plain: and crested heads Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
58. By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, _505 Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors, Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, Or charioteering ghastly alligators, Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes Of those huge forms--within the brazen doors _510 Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
59. And where within the surface of the river The shadows of the massy temples lie, And never are erased--but tremble ever _515 Like things which every cloud can doom to die, Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever The works of man pierced that serenest sky With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight To wander in the shadow of the night. _520
60. With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind. Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined _525 With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
61. A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. _530 Here lay two sister twins in infancy; There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep; Within, two lovers linked innocently In their loose locks which over both did creep Like ivy from one stem;--and there lay calm _535 Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
62. But other troubled forms of sleep she saw, Not to be mirrored in a holy song-- Distortions foul of supernatural awe, And pale imaginings of visioned wrong; _540 And all the code of Custom's lawless law Written upon the brows of old and young: 'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the strife Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'
63. And little did the sight disturb her soul.-- _545 We, the weak mariners of that wide lake Where'er its shores extend or billows roll, Our course unpiloted and starless make O'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:-- But she in the calm depths her way could take, _550 Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.
64. And she saw princes couched under the glow Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court In dormitories ranged, row after row, _555 She saw the priests asleep--all of one sort-- For all were educated to be so.-- The peasants in their huts, and in the port The sailors she saw cradled on the waves, And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. _560
65. And all the forms in which those spirits lay Were to her sight like the diaphanous Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us Only their scorn of all concealment: they _565 Move in the light of their own beauty thus. But these and all now lay with sleep upon them, And little thought a Witch was looking on them.
66. She, all those human figures breathing there, Beheld as living spirits--to her eyes _570 The naked beauty of the soul lay bare, And often through a rude and worn disguise She saw the inner form most bright and fair-- And then she had a charm of strange device, Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, _575 Could make that spirit mingle with her own.
67. Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given For such a charm when Tithon became gray? Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina _580 Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay, To any witch who would have taught you it? The Heliad doth not know its value yet.
68. 'Tis said in after times her spirit free _585 Knew what love was, and felt itself alone-- But holy Dian could not chaster be Before she stooped to kiss Endymion, Than now this lady--like a sexless bee Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none, _590 Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.
69. To those she saw most beautiful, she gave Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:-- They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, _595 And lived thenceforward as if some control, Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul, Was as a green and overarching bower Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. _600
70. For on the night when they were buried, she Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook The light out of the funeral lamps, to be A mimic day within that deathy nook; And she unwound the woven imagery _605 Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt into a ditch.
71. And there the body lay, age after age. Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, _610 Like one asleep in a green hermitage, With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing, And living in its dreams beyond the rage Of death or life; while they were still arraying In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind _615 And fleeting generations of mankind.
72. And she would write strange dreams upon the brain Of those who were less beautiful, and make All harsh and crooked purposes more vain Than in the desert is the serpent's wake _620 Which the sand covers--all his evil gain The miser in such dreams would rise and shake Into a beggar's lap;--the lying scribe Would his own lies betray without a bribe.
73. The priests would write an explanation full, _625 Translating hieroglyphics into Greek, How the God Apis really was a bull, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick The same against the temple doors, and pull The old cant down; they licensed all to speak _630 Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, By pastoral letters to each diocese.
74. The king would dress an ape up in his crown And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, And on the right hand of the sunlike throne _635 Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat The chatterings of the monkey.--Every one Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet Of their great Emperor, when the morning came, And kissed--alas, how many kiss the same! _640
75. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Walked out of quarters in somnambulism; Round the red anvils you might see them stand Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;--in a band _645 The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis, To the annoyance of king Amasis.
76. And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, _650 Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done _655 Only in fancy--till the tenth moon shone;
77. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, The Witch found one,--and so they took their fill Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. _660 Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart--a wide wound, mind from mind!-- She did unite again with visions clear Of deep affection and of truth sincere.
80. These were the pranks she played among the cities _665 Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties To do her will, and show their subtle sleights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nights _670 Than for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Witch of Atlas, by Percy Bysshe Shelley