Once more, once more, O yet again once more, Spent is my breath with fear and weariness! Vain toil it is to track this tangled wild-- This rank o'ergrown imprisoned solitude-- Whose very flowers are fetters in my way; Where I am chained about with vines and briers, Led blindfold on through mazes tenantless, And not a friendly echo answers me. Oh for a foot as airy as the wing Of the young brooding dove, to overpass, On swift commission of my true heart's love, All metes and bournes of this lone wilderness: So should I quickly find my truant lord. But, as it is, I can no farther go. What shall I do? despair? lie down and die? If I give o'er my search I shall despair, And if I do despair, I quickly die. Avaunt Despair! I will not yet despair. Begone, grim herald of oblivious Death! Strong-pinioned Hope, embrace thy wings about me; Shake not my fingers from thy golden chain. Oh still bear up and pity Ariadne! Alas! what hope have I but only Theseus, And Theseus is not here to pity me. Ah me, my Theseus, whither art thou gone! Thou dost forget that thou hast called me wife, And with sweet influence of holy vows Grappled and grafted me unto thyself. Oh how shall I, not knowing where thou art, Be all myself--thou dost dissever me. Yonder I'll rest awhile, for now I see, Through meshes of the internetted leaves, A little plot, girt with a living wall; A sylvan chamber, that the frolic Pan Has built and bosomed with a leafy dome, And windowed with a narrow glimpse of heaven. Its floor, sky-litten with the noontide sun, Shows garniture of many colored flowers, More dainty than the broidered webs of Tyre; And all about, from beeches, oaks and pines, Recesses deep of vernal solitude, Come sounds of calm that woo my ruffled spirits To a resigned and quiet contemplation. Yond brook, that, like a child, runs wide astray, Sings and skips on, nor knows its loneliness; A squirrel chatters at a doorless nut: A hammer bird drums on his hollow bark; And bits of winged life, with aery voices, Tinkle like fountains in a corridor. Fair haunt of peace, ye quiet cadences, Ye leafy caves of sadness and sweet sounds, That have no feeling nor a fellowship With the rash moods of terror and of pain, I did not think ye could, in such an hour, So steal from me, as in a sleep, a dream-- What is't that comes between me and the light? Protect me, Jove! Lo, what untended flowers, That all night long, like little wakeful babes, Darkly repine, and weep themselves asleep, In the orient morning lift their pretty eyes, Tear smiling, to behold the sun their sire Enter the gilded chambers of the east-- Strange droopingness! What quality of air? [Ariadne falls asleep.--Enter, the Dryads, as before.]