Whereupon I told, That once in the stillness of a summer's noon, While I was seated in a rocky cave By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced, The famous history of the errant knight 60 Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts Beset me, and to height unusual rose, While listlessly I sate, and, having closed The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea.
On poetry and geometric truth, 65 And their high privilege of lasting life, From all internal injury exempt, I mused, upon these chiefly: and at length, My senses yielding to the sultry air, Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream.

70 I saw before me stretched a boundless plain Of sandy wilderness, all black and void, And as I looked around, distress and fear Came creeping over me, when at my side, Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared 75 Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes: A lance he bore, and underneath one arm A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell Of a surpassing brightness.

At the sight 80 Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide Was present, one who with unerring skill Would through the desert lead me; and while yet I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight Which the new-comer carried through the waste 85 Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone (To give it in the language of the dream) Was "Euclid's Elements;" and "This," said he, "Is something of more worth;" and at the word Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, 90 In colour so resplendent, with command That I should hold it to my ear.

I did so, And heard that instant in an unknown tongue, Which yet I understood, articulate sounds, A loud prophetic blast of harmony; 95 An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold Destruction to the children of the earth By deluge, now at hand.

No sooner ceased The song, than the Arab with calm look declared That all would come to pass of which the voice 100 Had given forewarning, and that he himself Was going then to bury those two books: The one that held acquaintance with the stars, And wedded soul to soul in purest bond Of reason, undisturbed by space or time; 105 The other that was a god, yea many gods, Had voices more than all the winds, with power To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe, Through every clime, the heart of human kind.
While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, 110 I wondered not, although I plainly saw The one to be a stone, the other a shell; Nor doubted once but that they both were books, Having a perfect faith in all that passed.
Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt 115 To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed To share his enterprise, he hurried on Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen, For oftentimes he cast a backward look, Grasping his twofold treasure .-- Lance in rest, 120 He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now He, to my fancy, had become the knight Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight, But was an Arab of the desert too; Of these was neither, and was both at once.