2. 
When the old man his boat had anchored,
He wound me in his arms with tender care,
And very few, but kindly words he said, 1425
And bore me through the tower adown a stair,
Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear
For many a year had fallen.—­We came at last
To a small chamber, which with mosses rare
Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed 1430
Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

3. 
The moon was darting through the lattices
Its yellow light, warm as the beams of day—­
So warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,
The old man opened them; the moonlight lay 1435
Upon a lake whose waters wove their play
Even to the threshold of that lonely home: 
Within was seen in the dim wavering ray
The antique sculptured roof, and many a tome
Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become. 1440

4. 
The rock-built barrier of the sea was past,—­
And I was on the margin of a lake,
A lonely lake, amid the forests vast
And snowy mountains:—­did my spirit wake
From sleep as many-coloured as the snake 1445
That girds eternity? in life and truth,
Might not my heart its cravings ever slake? 
Was Cythna then a dream, and all my youth,
And all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?

5. 
Thus madness came again,—­a milder madness, 1450
Which darkened nought but time’s unquiet flow
With supernatural shades of clinging sadness;
That gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe,
By my sick couch was busy to and fro,
Like a strong spirit ministrant of good:  1455
When I was healed, he led me forth to show
The wonders of his sylvan solitude,
And we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.

6. 
He knew his soothing words to weave with skill
From all my madness told; like mine own heart, 1460
Of Cythna would he question me, until
That thrilling name had ceased to make me start,
From his familiar lips—­it was not art,
Of wisdom and of justice when he spoke—­
When mid soft looks of pity, there would dart 1465
A glance as keen as is the lightning’s stroke
When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

7. 
Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,
My thoughts their due array did re-assume
Through the enchantments of that Hermit old; 1470
Then I bethought me of the glorious doom
Of those who sternly struggle to relume
The lamp of Hope o’er man’s bewildered lot,
And, sitting by the waters, in the gloom
Of eve, to that friend’s heart I told my thought—­ 1475
That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.