Nadir

The planet orb of fire, whereon he rode Each day from east to west the heavens through, Spun round in sable curtaining of clouds; Not therefore veiled quite, blindfold, and hid, But ever and anon the glancing spheres, Circles, and arcs, and broad-belting colure, Glow’d through, and wrought upon the muffling dark Sweet-shaped lightnings from the nadir deep Up to the zenith,—hieroglyphics old, Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers Then living on the earth, with labouring thought Won from the gaze of many centuries: Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone, Their wisdom long since fled.—Two wings this orb Possess’d for glory, two fair argent wings, Ever exalted at the God’s approach: And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were; While still the dazzling globe maintain’d eclipse, Awaiting for Hyperion’s command.

This was the absolute nadir.

So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot; already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny; ignorant of that rut; yesterday, today, tomorrow; amazed, rapturous, floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity.

Nadir of misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper.

I sat there—perhaps on the very spot on which Nadir Khan had sat!—for several hours, swearing over and over that I would never again open a forbidden trunk, and feeling vaguely resentful that it had not been locked in the first place.