Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

About a golden censer from her hand

Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed

Long-treasured tears. "This temple, sad and lone,

"Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war

"Foughten long since by giant hierarchy

"Against rebellion: this old image here,

"Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,

"Is Saturn's; I Moneta, left supreme

"Sole priestess of this desolation."-

I had no words to answer, for my tongue,

Useless, could find about its roofed home

No syllable of a fit majesty

To make rejoinder to Moneta's mourn.

There was a silence, while the altar's blaze

Was fainting for sweet food: I look'd thereon,

And on the paved floor, where nigh were piled

Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps

Of other crisped spice-wood- then again

I look'd upon the altar, and its horns

Whiten'd with ashes, and its lang'rous flame,

And then upon the offerings again;

And so by turns- till sad Moneta cried,

"The sacrifice is done, but not the less

"Will I be kind to thee for thy good will.

"My power, which to me is still a curse,

"Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes

"Still swooning vivid through my globed brain

"With an electral changing misery

"Thou shalt with those dull mortal eyes behold,

"Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not."

As near as an immortal's sphered words

Could to a mother's soften, were these last:

And yet I had a terror of her robes,

And chiefly of the veils, that from her brow

Hung pale, and curtain'd her in mysteries

That made my heart too small to hold its blood.

This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand

Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face,

Not pin'd by human sorrows, but bright-blanch'd

By an immortal sickness which kills not;

It works a constant change, which happy death

Can put no end to; deathwards progressing

To no death was that visage; it had pass'd

The lily and the snow; and beyond these

I must not think now, though I saw that face-

But for her eyes I should have fled away.

They held me back, with a benignant light

Soft mitigated by divinest lids

Half-closed, and visionless entire they seem'd

Of all external things;- they saw me not,

But in blank splendour beam'd like the mild moon,

Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found

A grain of gold upon a mountain side,

And twing'd with avarice strain'd out my eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,

So at the view of sad Moneta's brow

I ach'd to see what things the hollow brain

Behind enwombed: what high tragedy

In the dark secret chambers of her skull

Was acting, that could give so dread a stress

To her cold lips, and fill with such a light

Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice

With such a sorrow- "Shade of Memory!"

Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

"By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house,

"By this last temple, by the golden age,

"By great Apollo, thy dear Foster Child,

"And by thyself, forlorn divinity,

"The pale Omega of a withered race,

"Let me behold, according as thou saidst,

"What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!"

No sooner had this conjuration pass'd

My devout lips, than side by side we stood

(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star.

Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs,

And saw, what first I thought an image huge,

Like to the image pedestal'd so high

In Saturn's temple. Then Moneta's voice

Came brief upon mine ear- "So Saturn sat

When he had lost his realms-" whereon there grew

A power within me of enormous ken

To see as a god sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme

At those few words hung vast before my mind,

With half-unravel'd web. I set myself

Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see,

And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life

Was in this shrouded vale, not so much air

As in the zoning of a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more

By reason of the fallen divinity

Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her reeds

Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large footmarks went

No farther than to where old Saturn's feet

Had rested, and there slept, how long a sleep!

Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were clos'd,

While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. -

It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;

But there came one who with a kindred hand

Touch'd his wide shoulders after bending low

With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

Then came the griev'd voice of Mnemosyne,

And griev'd I hearken'd. "That divinity

'Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest wood,

"And with slow pace approach our fallen King,

"Is Thea, softest-natur'd of our brood."

I mark'd the Goddess in fair statuary