49.  A haven beneath whose translucent floor The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, And around which the solid vapours hoar, 435 Based on the level waters, to the sky Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray, And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. 440

50.  And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing, And the incessant hail with stony clash Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash 445 Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke—­this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,—­

51.  On which that lady played her many pranks, Circling the image of a shooting star, 450 Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are, In her light boat; and many quips and cranks She played upon the water, till the car Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, 455 To journey from the misty east began.

52.  And then she called out of the hollow turrets Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion, The armies of her ministering spirits—­ In mighty legions, million after million, 460 They came, each troop emblazoning its merits On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion Of the intertexture of the atmosphere They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

53.  They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen 465 Of woven exhalations, underlaid With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid With crimson silk—­cressets from the serene Hung there, and on the water for her tread 470 A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn, Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

54.  And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught Upon those wandering isles of aery dew, Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, 475 She sate, and heard all that had happened new Between the earth and moon, since they had brought The last intelligence—­and now she grew Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night—­ And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. 480

55.  These were tame pleasures; she would often climb The steepest ladder of the crudded rack Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime, And like Arion on the dolphin’s back Ride singing through the shoreless air;—­oft-time 485 Following the serpent lightning’s winding track, She ran upon the platforms of the wind, And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.

56.  And sometimes to those streams