On gold sand impearl'd With lily shells, and pebbles milky white, Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light Against his pallid face: he felt the charm To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds, 110 To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads, Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails. And so he kept, until the rosy veils Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand Were lifted from the water's breast, and faun'd Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came Meekly through billows:--when like taper-flame Left sudden by a dallying breath of air, He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare Along his fated way. 120 Far had he roam'd, With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd Above, around, and at his feet; save things More dead than Morpheus' imaginings: Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe; Rudders that for a hundred years had lost The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd With long-forgotten story, and wherein No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin 130 But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls, Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude In ponderous stone, developing the mood Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man, Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan, And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe These secrets struck into him; and unless Dian had chaced away that heaviness, 140 He might have died: but now, with cheered feel, He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal About the labyrinth in his soul of love.