That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 45
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear, 50
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof. 
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees. 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl; 60
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hand like a roof,—­ 65
The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow; 70
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; 75
I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air, 80
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

NOTES:  3 shade 1820; shades 1839. 6 buds 1839; birds 1820. 59 with a 1820; with the 1830.

***

TO A SKYLARK.

[Composed at Leghorn, 1820, and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year.  There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript.]

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! 
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 10

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning. 
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15