CXVIII.
Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover[1]
Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy[2]—and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love—the earliest Oracle!
CXIX.
And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;[3]
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart
The purity of Heaven to earthly joys,
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart—
The dull satiety which all destroys—
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?
- ↑ [Compare Kubla Khan, lines 12, 13—
"But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!"] - ↑ [Compare Hamlet, act ii. sc, 2, line 292—
"This most excellent canopy the Air."]
- ↑
Fed the quick throbbing of a human heart
And the sweet sorrows of its deathless dying.—[MS. M. erased.]
or, And the sweet sorrow which exults in dying.—[MS. M. erased.]
