Like echoes of an antenatal dream.{6} It is an isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth, and sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer,{7} Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air.{8} It is a favored place. Famine or blight, Pestilence, war, and earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way. The wingèd storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight: Which sun or moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride Glowing at once with love and loveliness, Blushes and trembles at its own excess. Yet, like a buried lamp, a soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt not seen O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden eastern air, And level with the living winds which flow Like waves above the living waves below. I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high spirits call The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep but cannot die, Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste The scene it would adorn; and therefore still Nature with all her children haunts the hill. The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet Keeps up her love-lament; and the owls flit Round the evening tower; and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate; and the slow silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life; and, when years heap Their withered hours like leaves on our decay, Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul, of this elysian isle-- Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise and sit and walk together Under the roof of blue Ionian weather; And wander in the meadows; or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend With lightest winds to touch their paramour;{9} Or linger where the pebble-paven shore Under the quick faint kisses of the sea