This page needs to be proofread.
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky –
[1]Apart – like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light!
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle – and so be
To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!"
Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve! – on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love – and one moon adore –
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountains and dim plain
[2]Her way, but left not yet her Therasaean reign.
- ↑ Like fire-flies: I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-fly – They will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre into innumerable radii.
- ↑ Her Therasaean reign: Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners.
