Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/64

34 With beings brighter than have been, and give

A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh

I would recall a vision which I dreamed

Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,

A slumbering thought, is capable of years,

And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,

Green and of mild declivity, the last

As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,

Save that there was no sea to lave its base,

But a most living landscape, and the wave

Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men

Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke

Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill

Was crowned with a peculiar diadem

Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,

Not by the sport of nature, but of man:

These two, a maiden and a youth, were there

Gazing—the one on all that was beneath

Fair as herself—but the Boy gazed on her;

And both were young, and one was beautiful:

And both were young—yet not alike in youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

The Maid was on the eve of Womanhood;

The Boy had fewer summers, but his heart

Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye

There was but one belovéd face on earth,

And that was shining on him: he had looked

Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;

She was his voice; he did not speak to her,