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I.
 * Which, wandering on the echoing shore,
 * The enthusiast hears at evening:
 * 'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh;
 * 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
 * Of that strange lyre whose strings
 * The genii of the breezes sweep:
 * Those lines of rainbow light
 * Are like the moonbeams when they fall

Through some cathedral window, but the teints
 * Are such as may not find
 * Comparison on earth.

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen! Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; Their filmy pennons at her word they furl, And stop obedient to the reins of light:
 * These the Queen of Spells drew in,
 * She spread a charm around the spot,

And leaning graceful from the ethereal car,
 * Long did she gaze, and silently,
 * Upon the slumbering maid.

Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams, When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain, When every sight of lovely, wild, and grand,
 * Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,
 * When fancy, at a glance, combines
 * The wondrous and the beautiful,—
 * So bright, so fair, so wild a shape
 * Hath ever yet beheld,