A lulling murmur weave ?—­ 30
  Ianthe doth not sleep
  The dreamless sleep of death: 
Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
  Or mark her delicate cheek 35
With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
  Outwatching weary night,
  Without assured reward. 
  Her dewy eyes are closed;
On their translucent lids, whose texture fine 40
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
  With unapparent fire,
  The baby Sleep is pillowed: 
  Her golden tresses shade
  The bosom’s stainless pride, 45
Twining like tendrils of the parasite
  Around a marble column.

  Hark! whence that rushing sound? 
  ’Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
  Around a lonely ruin 50
When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
  In whispers from the shore: 
’Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
  The genii of the breezes sweep. 55
Floating on waves of music and of light,
The chariot of the Daemon of the World
  Descends in silent power: 
Its shape reposed within:  slight as some cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of day 60
  When evening yields to night,
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
  Its transitory robe. 
Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light 65
Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
  Their wings of braided air: 
The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car
  Gazed on the slumbering maid. 
Human eye hath ne’er beheld 70
A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o’er the maiden’s charmed sleep
  Waving a starry wand,
  Hung like a mist of light. 
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds 75
  Of wakening spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky. 
Maiden, the world’s supremest spirit
  Beneath the shadow of her wings
Folds all thy memory doth inherit 80
  From ruin of divinest things,
  Feelings that lure thee to betray,
  And light of thoughts that pass away. 
For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
  The truths which wisest poets see 85
Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
  Rewarding its own majesty,
  Entranced in some diviner mood
  Of self-oblivious solitude.

Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest; 90
  From hate and awe thy heart is free;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
  For dark and cold mortality
  A living light, to cheer it long,
  The watch-fires of the world among. 95