| |
(Four Zoas, Night II, ll. 551–86.)
I SEIZE the sphery harp, 1 strike the strings! | |
| |
| At the first sound the golden Sun arises from the deep, | |
| And shakes his awful hair; | |
| The Echo wakes the moon to unbind her silver locks: | |
| The golden Sun bears on my song, | 5 |
| And nine bright Spheres of harmony rise round the fiery king. | |
| |
| The joy of Woman is the death of her most best-belovèd, | |
| Who dies for love of her | |
| In torments of fierce jealousy and pangs of adoration: | |
| The Lovers’ night bears on my song, | 10 |
| And the nine Spheres rejoice beneath my powerful control. | |
| |
| They sing unceasing to the notes of my immortal hand. | |
| The solemn, silent Moon | |
| Reverberates the living harmony upon my limbs; | |
| The birds and beasts rejoice and play, | 15 |
| And every one seeks for his mate to prove his inmost joy. | |
| |
| Furious and terrible they sport and rend the nether Deep; | |
| The Deep lifts up his rugged head, | |
| And, lost in infinite humming wings, vanishes with a cry. | |
| The fading cry is ever dying: | 20 |
| The living voice is ever living in its inmost joy. | |
| |
| Arise, you little glancing wings and sing your infant joy! | |
| Arise and drink your bliss! | |
| For everything that lives is holy; for the Source of Life | |
| Descends to be a Weeping Babe; | 25 |
| For the Earthworm renews the moisture of the sandy plain. | |
| |
| Now my left hand I stretch to Earth beneath, | |
| And strike the terrible string. | |
| I wake sweet joy in dens of sorrow, and I plant a smile | |
| In forests of affliction, | 30 |
| And wake the bubbling springs of life in regions of dark death. | |
| |
| O, I am weary! Lay thine hand upon me, or I faint. | |
| I faint beneath these beams of thine; | |
| For thou hast touchèd my five Senses, and they answer’d thee. | |
| Now I am nothing, and I sink, | 35 |
| And on the bed of silence sleep, till thou awakest me. | |
