Page:The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language - second series.djvu/125

 Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; Lances in ambush set;

And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire; White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts, And ever climbing higher;

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, And hush'd seraglios.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, Torn from the fringe of spray.

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek.

And once my arm was lifted to hew down A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town; And then, I know not how,

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought Into the gulfs of sleep. 103