Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/408

lvi

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.

lvii

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,

To glide adown old Nilus, where^[1] he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axumè, 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.

lviii

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.

lix

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

lx

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.

1. where transcript, B.; when ed. 1824.