Fair flowers, bright waterfalls, and angel wings,

And sound alone

that from the

spirit sprang

Bore burden to the

charm the maiden

sang:

streamer,

Or tufted

wild spray,

That keeps from

the dreamer

The moonbeam away :-
Bright beings that ponder,

With half-closing eyes,

On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies,
Till they glance thro' the shade, and

Come down to your brow
Like-eyes of the maiden

Who calls on you now,-
Arise! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,

1 In Scripture is this passage: "The sun shall not harm thee by day, nor the moon by night." It is perhaps not generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently alludes.

To duty beseeming

These star-litten hours,

And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew

The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too-
(Oh, how, without you, Love,
Could angels be blest?)
Those kisses of true love
That lull'd ye to rest!
Up! shake from your wing
Each hindering thing:
The dew of the night—

It would weigh down your flight;
And true love caresses-

Oh, leave them apart!

They are light on the tresses,

But lead on the heart.

Ligeia! Ligeia!

My beautiful one!

Whose harshest idea

Will to melody run,

Oh, is it thy will

On the breezes to toss ?

Or, capriciously still

Like the lone albatross.1

Incumbent on night

(As she on the air)

To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there.

1 The albatross is said to sleep on the wing.

'Ligeia! wherever

Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever

Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep,
But the strains still arise

Which thy vigilance keep—
The sound of the rain

Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again

In the rhythm of the shower—
The murmur that springs!
From the growing of grass
Are the music of things—
But are model'd, alas!
Away, then, my dearest,
Oh, hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest

Beneath the moon-ray,
To lone lake that smiles

In its dream of deep rest,

At the many star-isles

That enjewel its breast,—
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid :

1 I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now unable to obtain, and quote from memory: "The verie essence, and, as it were, springe-heade and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of the forest do make when they growe."

Some have left the cool glade, and
Have slept with the bee,1

Arouse them, my maiden,
On moorland and lea,-
Go, breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,—
The musical number

They slumber'd to hear,

For what can awaken

An angel so soon,
Whose sleep hath been taken
Beneath the cold moon,
As the spell which no slumber
Of witchery may test,
The rhythmical number

Which lull'd him to rest?"

Spirits in wing, and angels to

the view,

A thousand seraphs burst th'
Empyrean through,

Young dreams still hovering
on their drowsy flight,

1 The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight.

The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir Walter Scott, or rather from Claud Halcro,in whose mouth I admired its effect

"Oh, were there an island,

Though ever so wild,

Where woman might smile, and
No man be beguil'd."