Had shone, gleam stony orbs: - so from his

steps

Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds

And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued
The stream, that with a larger volume now
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell, and there
Fretted a path through its descending curves,
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,

I Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and, its precipice
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,

Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning

caves,

Whose windings gave ten thousand various

tongues

To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands
Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
And seems, with its accumulated crags,
To overhang the world: for wide expand
Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills
Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
In naked and severe simplicity,

Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
Yielding one only response, at each pause
In most familiar cadence, with the howl,
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river,

Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, Fell into that immeasurable void

Scattering its waters to the passing winds.

The dim and hornèd moon hung low and poured

Yellow mist

A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
That overflowed its mountains.
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a star
Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
Slept, clasped in his embrace.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

ASIA'S SONG

FROM Prometheus Unbound

Y soul is an enchanted boat,

MWhich, like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, forever,

Upon that many-winding river,

Between mountains, woods, abysses,

A paradise of wildernesses!

Till, like one in slumber bound,

Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions In music's most serene dominions; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.

And we sail on, away, afar,

Without a course, without a star, But by the instinct of sweet music driven; Till through Elysian garden islets By thee, most beautiful of pilots, Where never mortal pinnace glided, The boat of my desire is guided: Realms where the air we breathe is love, Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.

We have passed Age's icy caves,

And Manhood's dark and tossing waves, And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray: Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee

Of shadow-peopled Infancy,

Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers

Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,

Peopled by shapes too bright to see,

And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee; Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

BUT THE MAJESTIC RIVER FLOATED ON

B

FROM Sohrab and Rustum

OUT the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,

Under the solitary moon; he flowed
Right for the polar star, past Orgunjè,
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands be-

gin

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles,-
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer,— till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed

stars'

Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.

Matthew Arnold