"Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cry I woke from deeper slumber--was it sleep?-- And saw a hooded figure standing by The bed whereon I lay. "Why do you keep, O spirit beautiful and swift, this guard About my slumber? Shelley, from the deep Why do you come with veiled face, mighty bard, As that unearthly shape was veiled to you At Casa Magni?" Then the room was starred With light as I was speaking, and I knew The god, my brother, from whose face the veil Melted as mist. "What mission fair and true, While I am sleeping, brings you? For I pale Amid this solemn stillness, for your face Unutterably majestic." As when the dale At midnight echoes for a little space, The night-bird's cry, the god responded "Come," And nothing more. I left my bed apace, And followed him with wings above the gloom Of clouds like chariots driven on to war, Between whose wheels the swift moon raced and swum. A mile beneath us lay the earth, afar Were mountains which as swift as thought drew near As we passed over pines, where many a star And heaven's light made every frond as clear As through a glass or in the lightning's flash. ... Yet I seemed flying from an olden fear, A bulk of black that sought to sting or gnash My breast or side--which was myself, it seemed, The flesh or thinking part of me grown rash And violent, a brain soul unredeemed, Which sometime earlier in the grip of Death Forgot its terror when my soul which streamed Like ribbons of silk fire, with quiet breath Said to the body, as it were a thing Separate and indifferent: "How uneath That fellow turns, while I am safe yet cling Close to him, both another and the same." Now was this mood reversed: That self must wing Its fastest flight to fly him, lest he maim With fleshly hands my better, stronger part, As dragon wings my flap and quench a flame. ... But as we passed o'er empires and athwart A bellowing strait, beholding bergs and floes And running tides which made the sinking heart Rise up again for breath, I felt how close The god, my brother, was, who would sustain My wings whatever dangers might oppose, And knowing him beside me, like a strain Of music were his thoughts, though nothing yet Was spoken by him.