CXIII.

“Nay I myself, though mortal, once was nursed
By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth,
And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed
Her breezy travels round our planet’s girth,
Telling me wonders of the moon and earth;
My gramarye at her grave lap I conn’d,
Where Puck hath been convened to make me mirth;
I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond,
And toy’d with Oberon’s permitted wand.”

CXIV.

“With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed me,
And delicate cates after my sunset meal,
And took me by my childish hand, and led me
By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel,
Whose awful bases deep dark woods conceal,
Staining some dead lake with their verdant dyes. 
And when the West sparkled at Phoebus’ wheel,
With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes,
To let me see their cities in the skies.”

CXV.

“’Twas they first school’d my young imagination
To take its flights like any new-fledged bird,
And show’d the span of winged meditation
Stretch’d wider than things grossly seen or heard. 
With sweet swift Ariel how I soar’d and stirr’d
The fragrant blooms of spiritual bow’rs! 
’Twas they endear’d what I have still preferr’d,
Nature’s blest attributes and balmy pow’rs,
Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and flow’rs.”

CXVI.

“Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty
Will I regard them in my honoring rhyme,
With love for love, and homages to beauty,
And magic thoughts gather’d in night’s cool clime,
With studious verse trancing the dragon Time,
Strong as old Merlin’s necromantic spells;
So these dear monarchs of the summer’s prime
Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells,
Till shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells.”

CXVII.

Look how a poison’d man turns livid black,
Drugg’d with a cup of deadly hellebore,
That sets his horrid features all at rack,—­
So seem’d these words into the ear to pour
Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar
Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage,
Wherewith his grisly arm he raised once more,
And bade the cluster’d sinews all engage,
As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age.

CXVIII.

Whereas the blade flash’d on the dinted ground,
Down through his steadfast foe, yet made no scar
On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound;
But Time was long benumb’d, and stood ajar,
And then with baffled rage took flight afar,
To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom,
Or meaner fames (like mine) to mock and mar,
Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom,
Whetting its edge on some old Caesar’s tomb.