It was perfection’s type, the absolute, Not one defect; the tiniest hair was smooth, The smallest feather’s edge unfrayed. The eyes Without the slightest bloodshot fleck, or mote. No fault the microscope could have revealed, Though magnifying many million times. So great my wonder, that I could not move, But lay entranced, while he stood waiting there; Till wearied with my long delay, he raised His wings half-way, and eager trembled them, As bluebirds do when near their mate; a neigh Of trumpet tone aroused me. Then I sprang Upon his back, and wildly shouted “On!” A spring with gathered feet, a clash of wings, That made me cling in terror, and we swept From Earth into the air. Woods, plains, and streams Flashed by beneath, as, up and on, we charged Straight to the frowning cloud. My very brain Reeled with our lightning speed, and dizzy height, And oh! how silent was the air. No sound, Except the steady beat of fanning wings, That hurled us on a rod at every stroke. The bellowing winds were loosed and fiercely met Our flight. They tossed the broad white mane across My shrinking shoulders, like a scarf of silk; They blew the strong-quilled feathers all awry, And like a banner beat the silvered cloth; But swerving not to right or left, we pressed Straight onward to the goal. At last I reined My steed upon the shaggy ridge of clouds, And caracoled along the beetling cliffs, Up to the very summit. Then I paused. Behind me lay the world with all its hum Of life, the distant city’s veil of smoke, The village gleaming white amid the trees; The very orchard I had left, now seemed A downy nest of green, and far away I caught the shimmer of the sea, where sails, With glidings, glittered like the snowy gulls. Behind all was serene, before me seethed The caldron of the tempest’s wrath. Thick clouds, Thrice tenfold blacker than the black outside We see, deep in the crackling fire-crypts writhed, And boiling rose and fell. A deafening blast Roaring its thunder voice above the scene, As if the fiends of Hell concocted there The scalding beverage of the damned. My horse Had snuffed the fumes, and rearing on the brink, That fearful brink, an instant pawed the air, And then sprang off. A suffocating plunge, Through heat and blinding smoke, while to his neck Convulsively I clung! Down through the cloud, Until I gasped for breath, and felt my brain Was bursting with the fervid weight. He stopped Before a large pavilion, round whose walls, As faithful guard, a whirlwind fierce revolved, And at whose folded door, with dazzling blade,