25. 
And for a space in my embrace she rested,
Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,
While my faint arms her languid frame invested;
At length she looked on me, and half unclosing
Her tremulous lips, said, ’Friend, thy bands were losing 2555
The battle, as I stood before the King
In bonds.—­I burst them then, and swiftly choosing
The time, did seize a Tartar’s sword, and spring
Upon his horse, and swift, as on the whirlwind’s wing,

26. 
’Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer, 2560
And we are here.’—­Then, turning to the steed,
She pressed the white moon on his front with pure
And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed
From the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;—­
But I to a stone seat that Maiden led, 2565
And, kissing her fair eyes, said, ’Thou hast need
Of rest,’ and I heaped up the courser’s bed
In a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread.

27. 
Within that ruin, where a shattered portal
Looks to the eastern stars, abandoned now 2570
By man, to be the home of things immortal,
Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go,
And must inherit all he builds below,
When he is gone, a hall stood; o’er whose roof
Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow, 2575
Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof,
A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.

28. 
The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made
A natural couch of leaves in that recess,
Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade 2580
Of flowering parasites, did Spring love to dress
With their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness
Of those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene’er
The wandering wind her nurslings might caress;
Whose intertwining fingers ever there 2585
Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.

29. 
We know not where we go, or what sweet dream
May pilot us through caverns strange and fair
Of far and pathless passion, while the stream
Of life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, 2590
Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;
Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion
Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there
Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean
Of universal life, attuning its commotion. 2595

30. 
To the pure all things are pure!  Oblivion wrapped
Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow
Of public hope was from our being snapped,
Though linked years had bound it there; for now
A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below 2600
All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere,
Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow,
Came on us, as we sate in silence there,
Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air;—­