Which would ensnare us now, for, in the end, It was a feeble shriek, faint, far, and low Arrested me-my mien grew calm In victory or in death our hopes and With seeming-careless glance; not many were Around her, for their comrades just withdrew To guard some other victim-so I drew My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly, All unaware three of their number slew, And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry So that I feared some brainless My countrymen invoked to death or Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky, Which to the wanderers o'er the soli tude The grate, as they departed to repass, With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound Of distant seas, from ages long Of their retiring steps in the dense gone by, gloom were drowned. XV The noon was calm and bright :around that column The overhanging sky and circling sea Spread forth, in silentness profound and solemn, The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me, So that I knew not my own misery : The islands and the mountains in the day Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see The town among the woods below that lay, And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay. XVI It was so calm that scarce the feathery weed Sown by some eagle on the top most stone Swayed in the air :-so bright that noon did breed No shadow in the sky beside mine own Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone. Below, the smoke of roofs involved in flame Rested like night, all else was clearly shown In that broad glare,-yet sound to me none came, As to its ponderous and suspended | But of the living blood that ran within mass, With chains which eat into the flesh, alas! With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound: my frame. XVII The peace of madness fled, and ah too soon! Arose, and bore me in its dark career Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane On the verge of formless space-it languished there, My wretched frame, my scorched limbs he wound In linen moist and balmy, and as cold As dew to drooping leaves: the chain, with sound And, dying, left a silence lone and Like earthquake, through the chasm of drear, |