Song and Story

I was destined, when a baby,
For that land which lieth hidden
In the moon; and whither, may be,
At their birth all souls are bidden.

She bewitched me then and bound me,
She a daughter of Apollo,
In a golden snare who wound me,
And compelled me thus to follow:--

Once she sent a stallion, sired
Of the Wind; a mare his mother,
Whom Thessalian madness fired,
And the Hurricane his brother.

And a voice said, "Do not tarry!
Mount him while the world is sleeping:
He, my beautiful, will carry
You, my Soul, into my keeping."

And I mounted: tempest whistled
In my ears, and, yawning o'er us,
Flamed the lightning; boomed the missiled
Thunder, crashing far before us.

On we hurled. The world was rubble
Underneath us; and the wonder
Of our passage seemed to double
Heaven's tempest and its thunder.

With us rode the air's wild races:
Wisps and witches; all the Brocken,
Stunted, gnarled, with fiendish faces,
Seemed around us, gibing, mocking:

Hate, that shook the heart with hooting:
Humpbacked Horror; gibbet-headed
Murder: and,--great ravens shooting
Over,--Fear, in bats embedded.

All were left; were passed like water
Hurling headlong from a mountain,--
Hag and elf and demon's daughter,--
Ere we reached that mystic fountain.

There we stopped. I drained a beaker
Old as Earth: the draught was fire:
On my soul the burning liquor
Acted like a new desire.

On again! The darkness lifted
Like an up-rolled banner. Scattered
Overhead, in points that shifted,
Shone the stars through tempest tattered.

Then the moon rose. Slowly, slowly,
Of a wild and copper color,
Rose the moon, in melancholy
Deeps; and all the stars grew duller.

And we passed,--an instant's scanning,--
Swift as thought, the spider-arches
Of the ray-built bridges spanning
Space between her lunar marches.

So I reached her kingdom, olden
As the God that was its maker,
Where the rocks and trees are golden,
And the sea and air are nacre.

Where, 'mid ingot-glowing flowers,
Over streams of diamond brightness,
Palaces of pearl and towers,
Wrought of topaz, loom in whiteness.

Here she met me with a chalice,
Like the Giamschid ruby burning;
And I entered in her palace,
From the world forever turning.

Centuries have passed, have vanished;
Still she holds me with her glory,
She, whom Earth long since hath banished?
She, the Soul of Song and Story.