IONE: Ah me! sweet sister, _505 The stream of sound has ebbed away from us, And you pretend to rise out of its wave, Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair. PANTHEA: Peace! peace! a mighty Power, which is as darkness, _510 Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky Is showered like night, and from within the air Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions, Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone, _515 Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night. IONE: There is a sense of words upon mine ear. PANTHEA: An universal sound like words: Oh, list! DEMOGORGON: Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul, Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, _520 Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll The love which paves thy path along the skies: THE EARTH: I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies. DEMOGORGON: Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth With wonder, as it gazes upon thee; _525 Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony: THE MOON: I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee! DEMOGORGON: Ye Kings of suns and stars, Daemons and Gods, Ethereal Dominations, who possess _530 Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness: A VOICE FROM ABOVE: Our great Republic hears: we are blest, and bless. DEMOGORGON: Ye happy Dead, whom beams of brightest verse Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray, _535 Whether your nature is that universe Which once ye saw and suffered-- A VOICE: FROM BENEATH: Or as they Whom we have left, we change and pass away. DEMOGORGON: Ye elemental Genii, who have homes From man's high mind even to the central stone _540 Of sullen lead; from heaven's star-fretted domes To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on: A CONFUSED VOICE: We hear: thy words waken Oblivion. DEMOGORGON: Spirits, whose homes are flesh; ye beasts and birds, Ye worms and fish; ye living leaves and buds; _545 Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds, Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:-- NOTE: _547 throng 1820, 1839; cancelled for feed B. A VOICE: Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. DEMOGORGON: Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; _550 A traveller from the cradle to the grave Through the dim night of this immortal day: ALL: Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.