Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/69



Moving about as in a gentle wind, Which, in a wink, to watery gauze refined, Pour'd into shapes of curtain'd canopies, Spangled, and rich with liquid broideries Of flowers, peacocks, swans, and naiads fair, Swifter than lightning went these wonders rare; And then the water, into stubborn streams Collecting, mimick'd the wrought oaken beams, Pillars, and frieze, and high fantastic roof, Of those dusk places in times far aloof Cathedrals call'd. He bade a loath farewell To these founts Protean, passing gulf, and dell, And torrent, and ten thousand jutting shapes, Half seen through deepest gloom, and grisly gapes, Blackening on every side, and overhead A vaulted dome like heaven's far bespread With starlight gems: ay, all so huge and strange, The solitary felt a hurried change Working within him into something dreary,— Vex'd like a morning eagle, lost and weary, And purblind amid foggy midnight wolds. But he revives at once: for who beholds New sudden things, nor casts his mental slough? Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below, Came mother Cybele! alone—alone— In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown About her majesty, and front death-pale, With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws, Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails Cowering their tawny brushes. Silent sails