Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/72

42 For ever, as the war became more fierce Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high, That spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce The woof of those white clouds, which seem to lie Far, deep, and motionless; while through the sky The pallid semicircle of the moon Passed on, in slow and moving majesty; Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.

I could not choose but gaze; a fascination Dwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew My fancy thither, and in expectation Of what I knew not, I remained:—the hue Of the white moon, amid that heaven so blue, Suddenly stained with shadow did appear; A speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew, Like a great ship in the sun's sinking sphere Beheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear.

Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains, Dark, vast, and overhanging, on a river Which there collects the strength of all its fountains, Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver, Sails, oars, and stream, tending to one endeavour; So, from that chasm of light a winged Form On all the winds of heaven approaching ever Floated, dilating as it came: the storm Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm.

A course precipitous, of dizzy speed, Suspending thought and breath; a monstrous sight! For in the air do I behold indeed An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight:— And now relaxing its impetuous flight, Before the aëreal rock on which I stood, The Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right, And hung with lingering wings over the flood, And startled with its } T ells the wide air's solitude.

A shaft of light upon its wings descended, And every golden feather gleamed therein— Feather and scale, inextricably blended. The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin Shone through the plumes its coils were twined within