Upon his cheek of death.  He wandered on
Till vast Aornos seen from Petra’s steep 240
Hung o’er the low horizon like a cloud;
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
Day after day a weary waste of hours, 245
Bearing within his life the brooding care
That ever fed on its decaying flame. 
And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
Sered by the autumn of strange suffering
Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand 250
Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;
Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone
As in a furnace burning secretly
From his dark eyes alone.  The cottagers,
Who ministered with human charity 255
His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
Their fleeting visitant.  The mountaineer,
Encountering on some dizzy precipice
That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind
With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet 260
Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
In its career:  the infant would conceal
His troubled visage in his mother’s robe
In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
To remember their strange light in many a dream 265
Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught
By nature, would interpret half the woe
That wasted him, would call him with false names
Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand
At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 270
Of his departure from their father’s door.

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
Of putrid marshes.  A strong impulse urged
His steps to the sea-shore.  A swan was there, 275
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. 
It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
High over the immeasurable main. 
His eyes pursued its flight:—­’Thou hast a home, 280
Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 
And what am I that I should linger here, 285
With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
That echoes not my thoughts?’ A gloomy smile 290
Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. 
For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. 295