That OLIVE likened them to those vagaries
Born to the eyes that gaze upon the spray
Of cataracts dashing in the sun. Their flying
Made music like the flowing on of streams,
They came and hovered in the air before her,
While she regarded them with timid looks
Of fear and pleasure, seeing not their features,
But floating hair of gold, and beamy brightness
As of white foreheads and blue, humid eyes.
Next moment she was lifted from the earth,
Encircled, as it were, by many rainbows,
And rushing, bird-like, through the airy space:
While a monotonous, soft and sleepy humming
Rose all around and filled her drowsy ears.
Brief time it was, 'till, with bewildered eyes,
She saw her fairies vanish in a mist,
Floating away in music, while she stood
Alone, far down the mountain opposite
The side that with such toil she just had climbed.
She stood alone--and where? the roses shrank
From her wan cheeks to view her new distress,--
Before her a dark chasm, and above her
A crowd of close and overhanging rocks,
All dripping, black, and hopelessly down-leant.
A glimmering hope now broke upon her sense--
Seeing an arch, and, far beyond, the gleam
Of lights that from some cavern stole away.
Under the arch she passed and found herself
Walking an ever-widening vista down,
Fading from twilight to auroral glows