| |
| MY 1 soul is like an enchanted boat, | |
| Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float | |
| Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; | |
| And thine doth like an angel sit | |
| Beside a helm conducting it, | 5 |
| Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. | |
| It seems to float ever, for ever, | |
| Upon that many-winding river, | |
| Between mountains, woods, abysses, | |
| A paradise of wildernesses! | 10 |
| Till, like one in slumber bound, | |
| Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, | |
| Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound: | |
| |
| Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions | |
| In music’s most serene dominions; | 15 |
| Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. | |
| And we sail on, away, afar, | |
| Without a course, without a star, | |
| But, by the instinct of sweet music driven; | |
| Till through Elysian garden islets | 20 |
| By thee, most beautiful of pilots, | |
| Where never mortal pinnace glided, | |
| The boat of my desire is guided: | |
| Realms where the air we breathe is love, | |
| Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, | 25 |
| Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. | |
| |
| We have pass’d Age’s icy caves, | |
| And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves, | |
| And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray: | |
| Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee | 30 |
| Of shadow-peopled Infancy, | |
| Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day; | |
| A paradise of vaulted bowers, | |
| Lit by downward-gazing flowers, | |
| And watery paths that wind between | 35 |
| Wildernesses calm and green, | |
| Peopled by shapes too bright to see, | |
| And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee: | |
| Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously. | |
