But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled So dreadful since thou must divide it with me! That when the ship sinks we no longer may be? To be after life what we have been before? Not to touch those sweet hands, not to look on those eyes, Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip; Lo! the ship The tigers leap up when they feel the slow brine Crawling inch by inch on them; hair, ears, limbs, and eyne, Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cry Burst at once from their vitals tremendously, And 'tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. And that breach in the tempest is widening away, And over head glorious, but dreadful to see, Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold, And, like passions made still by the presence of Love, 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 With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battle Of the snake's adamantine voluminousness; And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains Swollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean, Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread THE CLOUD. 1. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting lowera I bear light shades for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that wake: When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, II. I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Wherever he dream, under mountain or strea And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, III. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 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. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 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, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, V. I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist earth was laughing below. VI. I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky: I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; For after the rain, when with never a stain, The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. II. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. III. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. IV. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. VI. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. VII. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 1 |