FIRST SPIRIT: 
On a battle-trumpet’s blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, 695
’Mid the darkness upward cast. 
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant’s banner torn,
Gathering ’round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry—­ 700
Freedom!  Hope!  Death!  Victory! 
Till they faded through the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; ’twas the soul of Love; 705
’Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.

SECOND SPIRIT: 
A rainbow’s arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee, 710
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half: 
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:  715
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O’er the white waters.  I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh 720
Of one who gave an enemy
His plank, then plunged aside to die.

THIRD SPIRIT: 
I sate beside a sage’s bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed, 725
When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe; 730
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade, its lustre made. 
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire’s lightning feet: 
I must ride it back ere morrow, 735
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.

FOURTH SPIRIT: 
On a poet’s lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 740
But feeds on the aereal kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought’s wildernesses. 
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 745
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality! 
One of these awakened me, 750
And I sped to succour thee.

IONE: 
Behold’st thou not two shapes from the east and west
Come, as two doves to one beloved nest,
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air
On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere? 755
And, hark! their sweet sad voices! ’tis despair
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.