II

    The image of his love was there;
      And, with her golden wings,
    She swept her tone of sorrow from
      Thy melancholy strings!

    III

    We drew thee, as an orphan one,
      From waters that had cast
    No music round thee, as they went
      In their pale beauty past.

    IV

    No music but the changeless sigh—­
      That murmur of their own,
    That loves not blending in the thrill
      Of thine aerial tone.

    V

    The girl that slumbers at our side
      Will dream how they are bent,
    That love her even as they love
      Thy blessed instrument.

    VI

    And music, like a flood, will break
      Upon the fairy throne
    Of her pure heart, all glowing, like
      A morning star, alone!

    VII

    Alone, but for the song of him
      That waketh by her side,
    And strikes thy chords of silver to
      His fair and sea-borne bride.

    VIII

    Jewel! that hung before the heart
      Of some romantic boy;
    Like him, I sweep thee with a storm
      Of music and of joy!

    And Julio placed the trembling harp before
    The ladye, till the minstrel winds came o’er
    Its moisten’d strings, and tuned them with a sigh. 
    “I hear thee, how thy spirit goeth by,
    In music and in love.  Oh Agathe! 
    Thou sleepest long, long, long; and they will say
    That seek thee,—­’She is dead—­she is no more!’
    But thou art cold, and I will throw before
    Thy chilly brow the pale and snowy sheet.” 
    And he did lift it from her marble feet,
    The sea-wet shroud! and flung it silently
    Over her brow—­the brow of Agathe!

    But, as a passion from the mooded mind,
    The storm had died, and wearily the wind
    Fell fast asleep at evening, like one
    That hath been toiling in the fiery sun. 
    And the white sail dropt downward, as the wing
    Of wounded sea-bird, feebly murmuring
    Unto the mast.  It was a deathly calm,
    And holy stillness, like a shadow, swam
    All over the wide sea, and the boat stood. 
    Like her of Sodom, in the solitude,
    A snowy pillar, looking on the waste. 
    And there was nothing but the azure breast
    Of ocean and the sky—­the sea and sky,
    And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by
    Where the sun set, but his great seraph light,
    Went down alone, in majesty and might;
    And the stars came again, a silver troop,
    Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop
    Before the radiance of these holy gems,
    That bear the images of diadems!