’Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, 380
Dances i’ the wind, where never eagle flew;

’And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot
The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon

’All that was, seemed as if it had been not; 385
And all the gazer’s mind was strewn beneath
Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,

’Trampled its sparks into the dust of death
As day upon the threshold of the east
Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath 390

’Of darkness re-illumine even the least
Of heaven’s living eyes—­like day she came,
Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased

’To move, as one between desire and shame
Suspended, I said—­If, as it doth seem, 395
Thou comest from the realm without a name

’Into this valley of perpetual dream,
Show whence I came, and where I am, and why—­
Pass not away upon the passing stream.

’Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply. 400
And as a shut lily stricken by the wand
Of dewy morning’s vital alchemy,

’I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
And suddenly my brain became as sand 405

’Where the first wave had more than half erased
The track of deer on desert Labrador;
Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

’Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,
Until the second bursts;—­so on my sight 410
Burst a new vision, never seen before,

’And the fair shape waned in the coming light,
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

’Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops; 415
And as the presence of that fairest planet,
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

’That his day’s path may end as he began it,
In that star’s smile, whose light is like the scent
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, 420

’Or the soft note in which his dear lament
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content;

’So knew I in that light’s severe excess
The presence of that Shape which on the stream 425
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,

’More dimly than a day-appearing dream,
The host of a forgotten form of sleep;
A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam

’Through the sick day in which we wake to weep 430
Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep