To Ianthe, Sleeping

From “Queen Mab,” I. HOW wonderful is Death! Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon, With lips of lurid blue; The other, rosy as the morn When, throned on ocean’s wave, It blushes o’er the world: Yet both so passing wonderful! Hath then the gloomy Power, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, Seized on her sinless soul? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction’s breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin? Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o’er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Chaseth into darkness? Will Ianthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy, Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture from her smile? Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, And silent those sweet lips, Once breathing eloquence That might have soothed a tiger’s rage, Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed, And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The bosom’s stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column.* * * * * A gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame: Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained. She looked around in wonder, and beheld Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright-beaming stars That through the casement shone.