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 oceanstreams, Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion, A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean, 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 Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere. dread Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head, Like a meteor of light o'er the waters! her child smiled The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother The child and the ocean still smile on each other, Whilst LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY THE fountains mingle with the river, See the mountains kiss high heaven, THE CLOUD. I. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shades for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 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, II. I sift the snow on the mountains below, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, III. The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 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, IV. That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 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, V. I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the stars 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. The triumphal arch through which I march, 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 below. VI. I am the daughter of earth and water, And the nursling of the sky : 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. I. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. II. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. III. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. |