NOTE: 
93 doom B, edition 1839; dooms 1820.

SCENE 2.3: 
A PINNACLE OF ROCK AMONG MOUNTAINS. 
ASIA AND PANTHEA.

PANTHEA: 
Hither the sound has borne us—­to the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,
Like a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm,
Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, 5
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,
That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,
Like Maenads who cry loud, Evoe!  Evoe! 
The voice which is contagion to the world. 10

ASIA: 
Fit throne for such a Power!  Magnificent! 
How glorious art thou, Earth!  And if thou be
The shadow of some spirit lovelier still,
Though evil stain its work, and it should be
Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, 15
I could fall down and worship that and thee. 
Even now my heart adoreth:  Wonderful! 
Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain: 
Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,
As a lake, paving in the morning sky, 20
With azure waves which burst in silver light,
Some Indian vale.  Behold it, rolling on
Under the curdling winds, and islanding
The peak whereon we stand, midway, around,
Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, 25
Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves,
And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains
From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling
The dawn, as lifted Ocean’s dazzling spray, 30
From some Atlantic islet scattered up,
Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. 
The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl
Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines,
Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, 35
Awful as silence.  Hark! the rushing snow! 
The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth 40
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.

NOTE: 
26 illumed B; illumined 1820.

PANTHEA: 
Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking
In crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises
As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon 45
Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.

ASIA: 
The fragments of the cloud are scattered up;
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;
Its billows now sweep o’er mine eyes; my brain
Grows dizzy; see’st thou shapes within the mist? 50