Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/408

378 And sometimes to those streams of upper air Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, She would ascend, and win the spirits there To let her join their chorus. Mortals found That on those days the sky was calm and fair, And mystic snatches of harmonious sound Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed, And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep, To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads, Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep. His waters on the plain: and crested heads Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors, Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes, Or charioteering ghastly alligators, Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes Of those huge forms—within the brazen doors Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

And where within the surface of the river The shadows of the massy temples lie. And never are erased—but tremble ever Like things which every cloud can doom to die, Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever The works of man pierced that serenest sky With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight To wander in the shadow of the night.

With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind, Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet, Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.