Welcome, welcome, mystic shell!
Many a star has ceased to burn,[6]
Many a tear has Saturn's urn
O'er the cold bosom of the ocean wept,
Since thy aerial spell
Hath in the waters slept.
Now blest I'll fly
With the bright treasure to my choral sky,
Where she, who waked its early swell,
The Syren of the heavenly choir.
Walks o'er the great string of my Orphic Lyre;
Or guides around the burning pole
The winged chariot of some blissful soul:
While thou--
Oh son of earth, what dreams shall rise for thee!
Beneath Hispania's sun,
Thou'll see a streamlet run,
Which I've imbued with breathing melody;[7]
And there, when night-winds down the current die,
Thou'lt hear how like a harp its waters sigh:
A liquid chord is every wave that flows,
An airy plectrum every breeze that blows.
There, by that wondrous stream,
Go, lay thy languid brow,
And I will send thee such a godlike dream,
As never blest the slumbers even of him,[8]
Who, many a night, with his primordial lyre,
Sate on the chill Pangaean mount,[9]
And, looking to the orient dim,
Watched the first flowing of that sacred fount,
From which his soul had drunk its fire.
Oh think what visions, in that lonely hour,
Stole o'er his musing breast;
What pious ecstasy
Wafted his prayer to that eternal Power,
Whose seal upon this new-born world imprest
The various forms of bright divinity!
Or, dost thou know what dreams I wove,
Mid the deep horror of that silent bower,[10]
Where the rapt Samian slept his holy slumber?
When, free
From every earthly chain,
From wreaths of pleasure and from bonds of pain,
His spirit flew through fields above,
Drank at the source of nature's fontal number,
And saw, in mystic choir, around him move
The stars of song, Heaven's burning minstrelsy!
Such dreams, so heavenly bright,
I swear
By the great diadem that twines my hair,
And by the seven gems that sparkle there,
Mingling their beams
In a soft iris of harmonious light,
Oh, mortal! such shall be thy radiant dreams.
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