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THE HASHISH-EATER
I flee, for on that pylon of the sky,Some curse hath turned the unprinted snow to flame—Red fires that curl and cluster to my tread,Trying the summit's narrow cirque. And now,I see a silver python far beneath—Vast as a river that a fiend hath witched,And forced to flow remèant in its course.To fountains whence it issued. RapidlyIt winds from slope to crumbling slope, and fillsRavines and chasmal gorges, till the cragsTotter with coil on coil incumbent. SoonIt hath entwined the pinnacle I keep,And gapes with a fanged, unfathomable maw,Wherein great Typhon, and Enceladus,Were orts of daily glut. But I am gone,For at my call a hippogriff hath come,And firm between his thunder-beating wings,I mount the sheer cerulean walls of noon,And see the earth, a spurnèd pebble, fallLost in the fields of nether stars—and seekA planet where the outwearied wings of timeMight pause and furl for respite, or the plumesOf death be stayed, and loiter in reprieveAbove some deathless lily: For therein,Beauty hath found an avatar of flow'rs—Blossoms that clothe it as a coloured flame,From peak to peak, from pole to sullen pole,And turn the skies to perfume. There I findA lonely castle, calm and unbeset,Save by the purple spears of amaranth,And tender-sworded iris. Walls upbuiltOf flushèd marble, wonderful with rose,And domes like golden bubbles, and minaretsThat take the clouds as coronal—these are mine,For voiceless looms the peaceful barbican,And the heavy-teethed portcullis hangs aloftAs if to smile a welcome. So I leaveMy hippogriff to crop the magic meads,
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