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 bear the fire-balls roar behind.

56. 
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, 490
She would ascend, and win the spirits there
To let her join their chorus.  Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed, 495
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

57. 
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, 500
Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,
His waters on the plain:  and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

58. 
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, 505
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
Of those huge forms—­within the brazen doors 510
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

59. 
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
And never are erased—­but tremble ever 515
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight
To wander in the shadow of the night. 520

60. 
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind. 
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined 525
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.