Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

Feet of beauty, firmly planting

Arches white on rosy heel!

Whence the life-spring, throbbing, panting,

Pulses upward to reveal!

Fairest things know least despising;

Foot and earth meet tenderly:

'Tis the woman, resting, rising

Upward to sublimity,

Rise the limbs, sedately sloping,

Strong and gentle, full and free;

Soft and slow, like certain hoping,

Drawing nigh the broad firm knee.

Up to speech! As up to roses

Pants the life from leaf to flower,

So each blending change discloses,

Nearer still, expression's power.

Lo! fair sweeps, white surges, twining

Up and outward fearlessly!

Temple columns, close combining,

Lift a holy mystery.

Heart of mine! what strange surprises

Mount aloft on such a stair!

Some great vision upward rises,

Curving, bending, floating fair.

Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow

Lead my fascinated eye;

Some apocalypse will follow,

Some new world of deity.

Zoned unseen, and outward swelling,

With new thoughts and wonders rife,

Queenly majesty foretelling,

See the expanding house of life!

Sudden heaving, unforbidden

Sighs eternal, still the same--

Mounts of snow have summits hidden

In the mists of uttered flame.

But the spirit, dawning nearly

Finds no speech for earnest pain;

Finds a soundless sighing merely--

Builds its stairs, and mounts again.

Heart, the queen, with secret hoping,

Sendeth out her waiting pair;

Hands, blind hands, half blindly groping,

Half inclasping visions rare;

And the great arms, heartways bending;

Might of Beauty, drawing home

There returning, and re-blending,

Where from roots of love they roam.

Build thy slopes of radiance beamy

Spirit, fair with womanhood!

Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy,

Climb unto the hour of good.

Dumb space will be rent asunder,

Now the shining column stands

Ready to be crowned with wonder

By the builder's joyous hands.

All the lines abroad are spreading,

Like a fountain's falling race.

Lo, the chin, first feature, treading,

Airy foot to rest the face!

Speech is nigh; oh, see the blushing,

Sweet approach of lip and breath!

Round the mouth dim silence, hushing,

Waits to die ecstatic death.

Span across in treble curving,

Bow of promise, upper lip!

Set them free, with gracious swerving;

Let the wing-words float and dip.

DUMB ART THOU? O Love immortal,

More than words thy speech must be;

Childless yet the tender portal

Of the home of melody.

Now the nostrils open fearless,

Proud in calm unconsciousness,

Sure it must be something peerless

That the great Pan would express!

Deepens, crowds some meaning tender,

In the pure, dear lady-face.

Lo, a blinding burst of splendour!--

'Tis the free soul's issuing grace.

Two calm lakes of molten glory

Circling round unfathomed deeps!

Lightning-flashes, transitory,

Cross the gulfs where darkness sleeps.

This the gate, at last, of gladness,

To the outward striving me:

In a rain of light and sadness,

Out its loves and longings flee!