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? "Tisating 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?

Not to touch those sweet hands, not to look on

those eyes,

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?"

Lo! the ship

Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip;
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,

Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave,

Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain,
Hurried on by the might of the hurricane:
The hurricane came from the west, and past on
By the path of the gate of the eastern sun,
Transversely dividing the stream of the storm;
As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the 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 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

With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of

the battle

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

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,