alone;

my pastimes, and to be

170

For if the beings, of whom I was one,
Hating to be so, cross'd me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again. And then I dived,
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of
death,

Searching its cause in its effect; and drew From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust,

Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass'd The nights of years in sciences, untaught Save in the old time; and with time and toil,

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And terrible ordeal, and such penance
As in itself hath power upon the air
And spirits that do compass air and earth,
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made
Mine eyes familiar with Eternity,
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and
He who from out their fountain dwellings

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour.

But words are breath-look on me in my

sleep,

Or watch my watchings - Come and sit by me!

My solitude is solitude no more,

But peopled with the Furies; - I have gnash'd

My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset; — I have pray'd

For madness as a blessing - 't is denied me. I have affronted death, but in the war

Of elements the waters shrunk from me, 230 And fatal things pass'd harmless — the cold hand

Of an all-pitiless demon held me back, Back by a single hair, which would not break.

FIRST DESTINY, answering.

The city lies sleeping;

The morn, to deplore it,

May dawn on it weeping:
Sullenly, slowly,

The black plague flew o'er it, —
Thousands lie lowly;

Tens of thousands shall perish -
The living shall fly from
The sick they should cherish;
But nothing can vanquish

The touch that they die from.
Sorrow and anguish,
And evil and dread,

Envelope a nation

The blest are the dead,
Who see not the sight

Of their own desolation;
This work of a night—

-

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350

This wreck of a realm - this deed of my doingFor ages I've done, and shall still be renewing!

Astarte my beloved! speak to me:

I have so much endured, so much endure Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more

Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst

me

490

Too much, as I loved thee: we were not

made

To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath'st me not, that I do bear
This punishment for both, that thou wilt be
One of the blessed, and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence- in a life
Which makes me shrink from immortality -
A future like the past. I cannot rest.
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art—and what I am;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice which was my music - Speak to
me!

500

Speak to me ! I have wander'd o'er the earth, And never found thy likeness-Speak to me! Look on the fiends around-they feel for

me:

I fear them not, and feel for thee alone. Speak to me! though it be in wrath; - but

I reck not what but let me hear thee

once

This once - once more! Phantom of Astarte. Man.

Manfred !

Say on, say onit is thy voice! To-morrow ends thine

I live but in the sound Phan. Manfred! earthly ills.

Silent still!

Farewell!

521