Nubila - The Spirit of the Mist

She comes from the regions of ether,
    From depths of a fathomless blue,
Too thin for a sublunar breather,
    Too pure for a mortal to view.
A joy to the dwellers beneath her, 
    A light in the realm where he grew.

Of purple and gold is her vesture,
    And all inexpressible glows
Such as oft in the sun-drunken west are
    Diffused o’er the sky as she goes,
Or, whose at her worshipful gesture
    The wine of Aurora o’erflows.

Like thin, pearly smoke from a censer,
    Just rolled into waves by the jar
Of the organ– herself but a denser
    And rosier mist, her cymar
Ripples down and around the intenser
    Perfections they heightened afar.

O, soft as a wraith I have seen her
    Glide over the weltering deep.
All round, on the waving area,
    The daughters of Tethys would lean,
And the mirth of the Naiads grew keener
    While rocking the halcyon asleep.

I watch in the windless abysses
    The luminous blue of the sky,
When lo! she is there, with her tresses
Distinct in their aureate dye;
Then faint with Apollo’s caresses,
    Dissolves in a glance of the eye.

She walks on the crystalline levels
    Of air, feather-footed as snow.
Or where the slant sun-glory bevels
    The clouds to the glory below.
Slips down with the light to the revels
    Of fays in the westering glow.

Aloft on the car of Aurora
    She rides as an Orient Queen
Light-sylphids around her and o’er her,
    The daughters of Iris are seen,
The sun wine of morning they pour her
    Till swooning she’s lost in the sheen.

Reviving all white from her swooning
    She floats in the amorous blue,
When earth in its hot summer nooning,
    Pants mutely and yearns for the dew;
While wood-haunting Zephyr sits pruning 
    Her wings of ineffable hue.

In mystical beauty, how tender
    Her gossamer veil is unfurled
When the moon is alone in her splendor
    And silence is queen of the world!
She dims not a ray that can render
    Her garments more softly impearled.

Fair Nubila, born of the kisses
    Of sunshine and river, her own
Fall cooler than chaste Artemis’s
    On roses and lilies half-blown,
And sad is the verdure that misses
    Her touch when the cookoo doth moan