Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/71

Rh Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night,— Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight, That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.

When the last hope of trampled France had failed Like a brief dream of unremaining glory, From visions of despair I rose, and scaled The peak of an aëreal promontory, Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary; And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken Each cloud, and every wave:—but transitory The calm: for sudden, the firm earth was shaken, As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken.

So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder Burst in far peals along the waveless deep, When, gathering fast, around, above, and under, Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep, Until their complicating lines did steep The orient sun in shadow:—not a sound Was heard; one horrible repose did keep The forests and the floods, and all around Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.

Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps Earth and the ocean. See! the lightnings yawn Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on, One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown, Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by. There is a pause—the sea-birds, that were gone Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.

For, where the irresistible storm had cloven That fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen Fretted with many a fair cloud interwoven Most delicately, and the ocean green, Beneath that opening spot of blue serene, Quivered like burning emerald: calm was spread On all below; but far on high, between Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled, Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed.