Up to the cope careering swift In breathless motion fast, Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift, Or the sea-roc rides the blast, The sapphire sheet of eve is shot, The sphered moon is past, The earth but seems a tiny blot On a sheet of azure cast. O! it was sweet in the clear moonlight, To tread the starry plain of even, To meet the thousand eyes of night, And feel the cooling breath of heaven; But the Elfin made no stop or stay Till he came to the bank of the milky-way, Then he checked his courser’s foot, And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot. XXX. Sudden along the snowy tide That swelled to meet their footsteps’ fall, The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide, Attired in sunset’s crimson pall; Around the Fay they weave the dance, They skip before him on the plain, And one has taken his wasp-sting lance, And one upholds his bridle-rein; With warblings wild they lead him on To where through clouds of amber seen, Studded with stars, resplendent shone The palace of the sylphid queen. Its spiral columns gleaming bright Were streamers of the northern light; Its curtains’ light and lovely flush Was of the morning’s rosy blush, And the ceiling fair that rose aboon The white and feathery fleece of noon. XXXI. But oh! how fair the shape that lay Beneath a rainbow bending bright, She seemed to the entranced Fay The loveliest of the forms of light; Her mantle was the purple rolled At twilight in the west afar; ’Twas tied with threads of dawning gold, And buttoned with a sparkling star. Her face was like the lily roon That veils the vestal planet’s hue; Her eyes two beamlets from the moon, Set floating in the welkin blue. Her hair is like the sunny beam, And the diamond gems which round it gleam, Are the pure drops of dewy even That ne’er have left their native heaven. XXXII.