Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:
When the third came, like mist on breezes curled, _1120
From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:
Methought, upon the threshold of a cave
I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled
With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave,
Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave. _1125

3.
We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,
And the bright air o'er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
The leafless bough among the leaves alone, _1130
Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown,
In this strange vision, so divine to me,
That if I loved before, now love was agony.

4.
Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, _1135
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon--when suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
Sounds gathering upwards!--accents incomplete, _1140
And stifled shrieks,--and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.