'Twas far too strange, and wonderful for sadness; Sharpening, by degrees, his appetite 221 To dive into the deepest. Dark, nor light, The region; nor bright, nor sombre wholly, But mingled up; a gleaming melancholy; A dusky empire and its diadems; One faint eternal eventide of gems. Aye, millions sparkled on a vein of gold, Along whose track the prince quick footsteps told, With all its lines abrupt and angular: Out-shooting sometimes, like a meteor-star, 230 Through a vast antre; then the metal woof, Like Vulcan's rainbow, with some monstrous roof Curves hugely: now, far in the deep abyss, It seems an angry lightning, and doth hiss Fancy into belief: anon it leads Through winding passages, where sameness breeds Vexing conceptions of some sudden change; Whether to silver grots, or giant range Of sapphire columns, or fantastic bridge Athwart a flood of crystal. On a ridge 240 Now fareth he, that o'er the vast beneath Towers like an ocean-cliff, and whence he seeth A hundred waterfalls, whose voices come But as the murmuring surge. Chilly and numb His bosom grew, when first he, far away, Descried an orbed diamond, set to fray Old darkness from his throne: 'twas like the sun Uprisen o'er chaos: and with such a stun Came the amazement, that, absorb'd in it, He saw not fiercer wonders--past the wit 250 Of any spirit to tell, but one of those Who, when this planet's sphering time doth close, Will be its high remembrancers: who they? The mighty ones who have made eternal day For Greece and England. While astonishment With deep-drawn sighs was quieting, he went Into a marble gallery, passing through A mimic temple, so complete and true In sacred custom, that he well nigh fear'd To search it inwards; whence far off appear'd, 260 Through a long pillar'd vista, a fair shrine, And, just beyond, on light tiptoe divine, A quiver'd Dian. Stepping awfully, The youth approach'd; oft turning his veil'd eye Down sidelong aisles, and into niches old. And when, more near against the marble cold He had touch'd his forehead, he began to thread All courts and passages, where silence dead Rous'd by his whispering footsteps murmured faint: And long he travers'd to and fro, to acquaint 270 Himself with every mystery, and awe; Till, weary, he sat down before the maw Of a wide outlet, fathomless and dim To wild uncertainty and shadows grim. There, when new wonders ceas'd to float before, And thoughts of self came on, how crude and sore The journey homeward to habitual self! A mad-pursuing of the fog-born elf, Whose flitting lantern, through rude nettle-briar, Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire, 280 Into the bosom of a hated thing.