Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled-
As if that frail and wasted human form,
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight The moon arose and lo! the ethereal cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone

Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the

waves

Bursting and eddying irresistibly

Rage and resound forever.- Who shall save? The boat fled on,- the boiling torrent drove,— The crags closed round with black and jagged

arms,

The shattered mountain overhung the sea,

And faster still, beyond all human speed, Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, The little boat was driven. A cavern there Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on With unrelaxing speed.-" Vision and Love!" The Poet cried aloud, "I have beheld

The path of thy departure. Sleep and death Shall not divide us long!"

Percy Bysshe Shelley

CORSAIRS' SONG

'ER the glad waters of the dark blue sea,

as free,

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their swayOur flag the sceptre all who meet obey.

Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Ah, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken at the heaving wave;
Nor thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
Whom slumber sooths not-pleasure cannot

please

O, who can tell, save he whose heart has tried, And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, The exulting sense the pulse's maddening play

That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way? Lord Byron

T

THE OCEAN

HERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin - his control Stops with the shore; - upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depth with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and un

known.

His steps are not upon thy paths,- thy fields Are not a spoil for him,- thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; - boundless, endless, and sublime

The image of Eternity - the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers - they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror -'twas a pleasing fear, For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here. Lord Byron

I

ON THE LIDO

FROM Julian and Maddalo

RODE one evening with Count Maddalo Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow

Of Adria towards Venice. A bare strand

Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand, Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds, Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds,

Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,

Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, Abandons; and no other object breaks

The waste but one dwarf tree and some few stakes

Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes

A narrow space of level sand thereon,

Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.

This ride was my delight. I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
More barren than its billows; and yet more
Than all, with a remembered friend I love
To ride as then I rode; - for the winds drove
The living spray along the sunny air

Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,
Stripped to their depths by the awakening north;
And, from the waves, sound like delight broke
forth

Harmonizing with solitude, and sent

Into our hearts aërial merriment.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

MY

DRIFTING

Y soul to-day
Is far away

Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;
My winged boat,

A bird afloat,

Swims round the purple peaks remote:

Round purple peaks

It sails and seeks

Blue inlets and their crystal creeks,
Where high rocks throw,

Through deeps below,

A duplicated golden glow.

Far, vague, and dim,

The mountains swim;
While on Vesuvius' misty brim
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O'erlooking the volcanic lands.

Here Ischia smiles

O'er liquid miles;

And yonder, bluest of the isles,

Calm Capri waits,

Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates.

I heed not, if

My rippling skiff

Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff:

With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise.