Upon the neck, between the wings,
  Of a white, sailing swan,
A flaky bed of shelterings—­
  There you will find the one. 
The other—­well, it will not out,
  Nor need I tell it you;
I’ve told you one, and need you doubt,
  When there are only two?

Fulfil old dreams, O splendid bird,
  Me o’er the waters bear;
Sure never ocean’s face was stirred
  By any ship so fair! 
Sure never whiteness found a dress,
  Upon the earth to go,
So true, profound, and rich, unless
  It was the falling snow.

With quick short flutter of each wing
  Half-spread, and stooping crown,
She calls me; and with one glad spring
  I nestle in the down. 
Plunges the bark, then bounds aloft,
  With lessening dip and rise. 
Round curves her neck with motion soft—­
  Sure those are woman’s eyes.

One stroke unseen, with oary feet,
  One stroke—­away she sweeps;
Over the waters pale we fleet,
  Suspended in the deeps. 
And round the sheltering rock, and lo! 
  The tumbling, weltering sea! 
On to the west, away we go,
 Over the waters free!

Her motions moulded to the wave,
  Her billowy neck thrown back,
With slow strong pulse, stately and grave,
  She cleaves a rippling track. 
And up the mounting wave we glide,
  With climbing sweeping blow;
And down the steep, far-sloping side,
  To flowing vales below.

I hear the murmur of the deep
  In countless ripples pass,
Like talking children in their sleep,
  Like winds in reedy grass. 
And through some ruffled feathers, I
  The glassy rolling mark,
With which the waves eternally
  Roll on from dawn to dark.

The night is blue, the stars aglow;
  In solemn peace o’erhead
The archless depth of heaven; below,
  The murmuring, heaving bed. 
A thickened night, it heaveth on,
  A fallen earthly sky;
The shadows of its stars alone
  Are left to know it by.

What faints across the lifted loop
 Of cloud-veil upward cast? 
With sea-veiled limbs, a sleeping group
  Of Nereids dreaming past. 
Swim on, my boat; who knows but I,
  Ere night sinks to her grave,
May see in splendour pale float by
  The Venus of the wave?

2.

In the night, round a lady dreaming—­
  A queen among the dreams—­
Came the silent sunset streaming,
  Mixed with the voice of streams. 
A silver fountain springing
  Blossoms in molten gold;
And the airs of the birds float ringing
  Through harmonies manifold.

She lies in a watered valley;
  Her garden melts away
Through foot-path and curving alley
  Into the wild wood grey. 
And the green of the vale goes creeping
  To the feet of the rugged hills,
Where the moveless rocks are keeping
  The homes of the wandering rills.

And the hues of the flowers grow deeper,
  Till they dye her very brain;
And their scents, like the soul of a sleeper,
  Wander and waver and rain. 
For dreams have a wealth of glory
  That daylight cannot give: 
Ah God! make the hope a story—­
  Bid the dreams arise and live.