“Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray! 
  How lovely ’tis to look so far away! 
  She seemed not thus upon that autumn eve
  I left her gorgeous halls—­nor mourned to leave,
  That eve—­that eve—­I should remember well—­
  The sun-ray dropped, in Lemnos with a spell
  On th’ Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
  Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall—­
  And on my eyelids—­O, the heavy light! 
  How drowsily it weighed them into night! 
  On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
  With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan: 
  But O, that light!—­I slumbered—­Death, the while,
  Stole o’er my senses in that lovely isle
  So softly that no single silken hair
  Awoke that slept—­or knew that he was there.

  “The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon
  Was a proud temple called the Parthenon; [28]
  More beauty clung around her columned wall
  Then even thy glowing bosom beats withal, [29]
  And when old Time my wing did disenthral
  Thence sprang I—­as the eagle from his tower,
  And years I left behind me in an hour. 
  What time upon her airy bounds I hung,
  One half the garden of her globe was flung
  Unrolling as a chart unto my view—­
  Tenantless cities of the desert too! 
  Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
  And half I wished to be again of men.”

  “My Angelo! and why of them to be? 
  A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee—­
  And greener fields than in yon world above,
  And woman’s loveliness—­and passionate love.” 
  “But list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
  Failed, as my pennoned spirit leapt aloft, [30]
  Perhaps my brain grew dizzy—­but the world
  I left so late was into chaos hurled,
  Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
  And rolled a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. 
  Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar,
  And fell—­not swiftly as I rose before,
  But with a downward, tremulous motion thro’
  Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto! 
  Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
  For nearest of all stars was thine to ours—­
  Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
  A red Daedalion on the timid Earth.”

“We came—­and to thy Earth—­but not to us Be given our lady’s bidding to discuss:  We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod She grants to us as granted by her God—­ But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurled Never his fairy wing o’er fairer world!  Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea—­ But when its glory swelled upon the sky, As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled—­as doth Beauty then!”

  Thus in discourse, the lovers whiled away
  The night that waned and waned and brought no day. 
  They fell:  for Heaven to them no hope imparts
  Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.