pass

To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound,

And the waves and the thunders, made silent around,

Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed Through the low trailing rack of the tempest, is lost

In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep

Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep
It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale
Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the
gale,

Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about;
While the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a rout
Of death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing
iron,

With splendour and terror the black ship environ;

Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale
In fountains spout o'er it. In many a spire [fire,
The pyramid-billows, with white points of brine,
In the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine,
As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea.

The great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree, While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast

Of the whirlwind that stript it of branches has past.

The intense thunder-balls which are raining from heaven

Have shattered its mast, and it stands black and

riven.

O'er the lakes of the desert! Who sit on the other? Is that all the crew that lie burying each other, Like the dead in a breach, round the foremast? Are those

Twin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold (What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold)

Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank,

The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating Are these all?

[plank!

Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain On the windless expanse of the watery plain, Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at

noon,

And there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon,

Till a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep, Whose breath was quick pestilence; then, the cold sleep

Crept, like blight through the ears of a thick field

of corn,

O'er the populous vessel. And even and morn, With their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghast

Like dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast

Down the deep, which closed on them above and around,

And the sharks and the dog-fish their grave-clothes unbound,

And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down

From God on their wilderness. One after one
The mariners died; on the eve of this day,
When the tempest was gathering in cloudy array,
But seven remained. Six the thunder had smitten,
And they lie black as mummies on which Time has
written

His scorn of the embalmer; the seventh, from the deck

An oak splinter pierced through his breast and his back,

And hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck.

No more? At the helm sits a woman more fair Than heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair,

It sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea. She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee, It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder

Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder It is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near, It would play with those eyes where the radiance

of fear

Is outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high,
The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye;
Whilst its mother's is lustreless. "Smile not, my
child,

But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled
Of the pang that awaits us, whatever that be,
So dreadful since thou must divide it with me!
Dream, sleep! This pale bosom, thy cradle and
bed,

Will it rock thee not, infant? "Tis beating with dread!

Alas! what is life, what is death, what are we, That when the ship sinks we no longer may be? What! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more?

To be after life what we have been before? [eyes, Not to touch those sweet hands, not to look on those Those lips, and that hair, all that smiling disguise Thou yet wearest, sweet spirit, which I, day by day,

Have so long called my child, but which now fades away

Like a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?"

Black as a cormorant the screaming blast, Between ocean and heaven, like an ocean, past, Till it came to the clouds on the verge of the world

Which, based on the sea and to heaven upcurled, Like columns and walls did surround and sustain The dome of the tempest; it rent them in twain, As a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag:

And the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag, Like the stones of a temple ere earthquake has past,

Like the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast; They are scattered like foam on the torrent; and where

The wind has burst out through the chasm, from the air

Of clear morning, the beams of the sunrise flow in,
Unimpeded, keen, golden, and crystalline,
Banded armies of light and of air; at one gate
They encounter, but interpenetrate.
And that breach in the tempest is widening away,
And the caverns of cloud are torn up by the day,
And the fierce winds are sinking with weary wings,
Lulled by the motion and murmurings,
And the long glassy heave of the rocking sea,
And over head glorious, but dreadful to see,
The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold,
Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves
behold,

The deep calm of blue heaven dilating above,
And, like passions made still by the presence of
Love,

Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slide
Tremulous with soft influence; extending its tide
From the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle,
Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with heaven's
azure smile,

The wide world of waters is vibrating.

Where

Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay
One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray [ battle
With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the
Stain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the
rattle

Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress
Of the snake's adamantine voluminousness;
And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains
Where the gripe of the tiger has wounded the
veins,

Swollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash

As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash The thin winds and soft waves into thunder! the

screams

And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth oceanstreams,

Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion,
A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean,
The fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other
Is winning his way from the fate of his brother,
To his own with the speed of despair. Lo! a boat
Advances; twelve rowers with the impulse of
thought

Urge on the keen keel, the brine foams. At the stern
Three marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets

burn

In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on
To his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone,
'Tis dwindling and sinking, 'tis now almost gone,
Of the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea.
With her left hand she grasps it impetuously,
With her right she sustains her fair infant. Death,
Fear,

Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere, Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread

Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head,

Like a meteor of light o'er the waters! her child Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring: so smiled

The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother

The child and the ocean still smile on each other, Whilst

THE CLOUD.

I.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shades for the leaves when laid

In their noon-day dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

II.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast ;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,

Lightning my pilot sits,

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

III.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

IV.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

V.

I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my
Is the million-coloured bow;
[chair,
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

THE fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea ;-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me ?

January, 1820.

ΤΟ

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad day-light

With some pain is fraught;

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied
His generations under the pavilion

Of the sun's throne: palace and pyramid,

Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. This human living multitude

Was savage, cunning, blind and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung tyranny; beneath, sate deified The sister-pest, congregator of slaves;

Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side.

IV.

The nodding promontories, and blue isles,

And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves

now.

Spain,

Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong;

As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey;

Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep; I will record the

Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody

On the unapprehensive wild.

The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,

Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Ægean main

V.

Athens arose a city such as vision

Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision

Of kingliest masonry: the ocean floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it ;

Its portals are inhabited

By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, A divine work! Athens diviner yet

Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;

For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill

Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.

VI.

Within the surface of Time's fleeting river
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immoveably unquiet, and for ever

It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder
With an earth-awakening blast
Through the caverns of the past;
Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,
Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder!
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and
dew;

One sun illumines Heaven; one spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight

renew.