To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapt Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow Of public hope was from our being snapt, Tho’ linkèd years had bound it there; for now A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere, Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow, Came on us, as we sate in silence there, Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air. In silence which doth follow talk that causes The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears, When wildering passion, swalloweth up the pauses Of inexpressive speech:--the youthful years Which we together past, their hopes and fears, _The common blood which ran within our frames, That likeness of the features which endears The thoughts expressed by them, our very names_, And all the wingèd hours which speechless memory claims Had found a voice; ... * * * * * The meteor shewed the leaves on which we sate, And Cythna’s glowing arms, and the thick ties Of her soft hair which bent with gathered weight My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes, Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies O’er a dim well, move, though the star reposes, Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies, Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses, With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses. The meteor to its far morass returned: The beating of our veins one interval Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall Around my heart like fire; and over all A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall Two disunited spirits when they leap In union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep. Was it one moment that confounded thus All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one Unutterable power, which shielded us Even from our own cold looks, when we had gone Into a wide and wild oblivion Of tumult and of tenderness? or now Had ages, such as make the moon and sun, The seasons, and mankind their changes know, Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below? I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps The failing heart in languishment, or limb Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim Thro’ tears of a wide mist boundless and dim, In one caress? What is the strong controul Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb, Where far over the world those vapours roll Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?