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 hosom 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

Đf 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 ? 'Tis rating 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, linobs,

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 gata 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 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

('ne 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

screams

And hissings, crawl fast o'er the smooth ocean

streams, Each sound like a centiped.

Near this commotion, 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,