Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock

The calm and spangled sky. The little boat

Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam

Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled -
As if that frail and wasted human form 350
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves

Bursting and eddying irresistibly Rage and resound forever. - Who shall save?

The boat fled on,- the boiling torrent drove,

The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,

The shattered mountain overhung the sea, And faster still, beyond all human speed, Suspended on the sweep of the smooth

wave,

The little boat was driven. A cavern there

Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,

And, lo! with gentle motion between banks Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 400

The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,

With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,

Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,

These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,

Uniting their close union; the woven leaves Make network of the dark blue light of day And the night's noontide clearness, mutable As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns

Beneath these canopies extend their swells, Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms

Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk-rose twin with jasmine

A soul-dissolving odor to invite

450

To some more lovely mystery. Through

moss,

Commit the colors of that varying cheek, 600 That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured

A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist

Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank

Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very winds,

Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice Slept, clasped in his embrace. -O storm of death,

Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!

And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
Guiding its irresistible career

In thy devastating omnipotence,

610

Art king of this frail world! from the red field

Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,

629

Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
Did he resign his high and holy soul
To images of the majestic past,
That paused within his passive being now,
Like winds that bear sweet music, when
they breathe

Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place

His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,

Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink

Of that obscurest chasm;- and thus he lay,

Surrendering to their final impulses

The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,

The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear 640

Marred his repose; the influxes of sense
And his own being, unalloyed by pain,
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
The stream of thought, till he lay breath-
ing there

At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight

Was the great moon, which o'er the western line

Of the wide world her mighty horn sus

pended,

With whose dun beams inwoven darkness

seemed

To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It rests; and still as the divided frame 650
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
That ever beat in mystic sympathy

With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still;