So pale, that even beside his cheek
The snowy column from its shade
Caught whiteness: yet his countenance
Raised upward, burned with radiance1155
Of spirit-piercing joy, whose light,
Like the moon struggling through the night
Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break
With beams that might not be confined.
I paused, but soon his gestures kindled1160
New power, as by the moving wind
The waves are lifted, and my song
To low soft notes now changed and dwindled,
And from the twinkling wires among,
My languid fingers drew and flung1165
Circles of life-dissolving[1] sound,
Yet faint: in aery rings they bound
My Lionel, who,[2] as every strain
Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien
Sunk with the sound relaxedly;1170
And slowly now he turned to me,
As slowly faded from his face
That awful joy: with looks serene
He was soon drawn to my embrace,
And my wild song then died away1175
In murmurs: words I dare not say[3]
We mixed, and on his lips mine fed
Till they methought felt still and cold:
"What is it with thee, love?" I said:
- ↑ No hyphen in Shelley's edition.
- ↑ Mr. Rossetti omits who, puts a full point after Lionel, commences a fresh sentence with As, and accuses Shelley of using bad English, in terms which I prefer not to quote. Mr. Swinburne rebuts the charge on the ground that the construction, though licentious, is used by elder classical writers. But it is open to question whether mien, is nominative or accusative. Shelley may have meant to express that Lionel "sunk his mien," though it is more probable that the construction intended is that "Lionel's mien sunk."
- ↑ In the original the sense is subverted by the comma being at words instead of say.
