Part 5 (1/2)
As blood from some enormous hurt The sanguine sunset leapt; Across it, like a dabbled skirt, The hurrying tempest swept.
THE CLOUD-ISLANDS
What islands marvellous are these, That gem the sunset's tides of light-- Opals aglow in saffron seas?
How beautiful they lie, and bright, Like some new-found Hesperides!
What varied, changing magic hues Tint gorgeously each sh.o.r.e and hill!
What blazing, vivid golds and blues Their seaward winding valleys fill!
What amethysts their peaks suffuse!
Close held by curving arms of land That out within the ocean reach, I mark a faery city stand, Set high upon a sloping beach That burns with fire of s.h.i.+mmering sand.
Of sunset-light is formed each wall; Each dome a rainbow-bubble seems; And every spire that towers tall A ray of golden moonlight gleams; Of opal-flame is every hall.
Alas! how quickly dims their glow!
What veils their dreamy splendours mar!
Like broken dreams the islands go, As down from strands of cloud and star, The sinking tides of daylight flow.
THE SNOW-BLOSSOMS
But yestereve the winter trees Reared leafless, blackly bare, Their twigs and branches poignant-marked Upon the sunset-flare.
White-petaled, opens now the dawn, And in its pallid glow, Revealed, each leaf-lorn, barren tree Stands white with flowers of snow.
THE SUMMER MOON
How is it, O moon, that melting, Unstintedly, prodigally, On the peaks' hard majesty, Till they seem diaphanous And fluctuant as a veil, And pouring thy rapturous light Through pine, and oak, and laurel, Till the summer-sharpened green, Softening and tremulous, Is a l.u.s.trous miracle-- How is it that I find, When I turn again to thee, That thy lost and wasted light Is regained in one magic breath?
THE RETURN OF HYPERION
The dungeon-clefts of Tartarus Are just beyond yon mountain-girdle, Whose ma.s.s is bound around the bulk Of the dark, unstirred, unmoving East.
Alike on the mountains and the plain, The night is as some terrific dream, That closes the soul in a crypt of dread Apart from touch or sense of earth, As in the s.p.a.ce of Eternity.