The tigers leap up when they feel the Of clear morning, the beams of the sunslow brine rise flow in, Crawling inch by inch on them, hair, Unimpeded, keen, golden, and crystal Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, Banded armies of light and of air; at one gate hoarse cry Bursts at once from their vitals tremend- They encounter, but interpenetrate. And that breach in the tempest is widening away, ously, And 'tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave, Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain, 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, Hurried on by the might of the hurri- And the long glassy heave of the rocking to see The hurricane came from the west, and And overhead glorious, but dreadful past on By the path of the gate of the eastern The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold, sun, Transversely dividing the stream of the Are consuming in sunrise. storm; waves behold The heaped As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the The deep calm of blue heaven dilating form Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. 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 mountain ous crag: And, above, 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 Is the ship? On the verge of the wave One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray And the dense clouds in many a ruin | With a sea-snake. The foam and the and rag, smoke of the battle Like the stones of a temple ere earth- Stain the clear air with sunbows; the quake has past, jar, and the rattle Like the dust of its fall, on the whirl- Of solid bones crushed by the infinite They are scattered like foam on the Of the snake's adamantine voluminoustorrent; and where ness; The wind has burst out from the chasm, And the hum of the hot blood that from the air spouts and rains Where the gripe of the tiger has wounded The child and the ocean still smile on 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 Whilst each other, THE CLOUD I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; And hissings crawl fast o'er the smooth I bear light shade for the leaves when ocean streams, 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. sister and brother Like a laid In their noonday 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. 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. 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. 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. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist earth was laughing I am the daughter of earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. 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. TO A SKYLARK HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. The volcanoes are dim, and the stars And 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. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest The blue deep thou wingest, singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightning, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, From rainbow clouds there flow A thing wherein we feel there is some 1 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of Which paves the void was from behind saddest thought. it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep: I will record the same. II The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth: The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of heaven. The dædal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air : But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them, and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. III Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and For thou wert not; but o'er the popu the ray Of the remotest sphere of living lous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of flame S waves |
