It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark: Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark Its path no more!-I sought to close mine eyes, But, like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark; I would have risen, but ere that I could rise, My parched skin was split with piercing agonies. XIX. I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever Its adamantine links, that I might die : The Champion of thy faith e'er sought to fly. That starry night, with its clear silence, sent Tameless resolve which laughed at misery Into my soul-linked remembrance lent To that such power, to me such a severe content. XX. To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair sun Its shafts of agony kindling thro' the air Moved over me, nor though in evening dun, Or when the stars their visible courses run, Or morning, the wide universe was spread In dreary calmness round me, did I shun Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed. XXI. Two days thus passed-I neither raved nor died Thirst raged within me, like a scorpion's nest Built in mine entrails: I had spurned aside The water-vessel, while despair possessed My thoughts, and now no drop remained! the uprest Of the third sun brought hunger-but the crust Which had been left was to my craving breast Fuel, not food. I chewed the bitter dust, my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen And bit rust. XXII. My brain began to fail when the fourth morn Burst o'er the golden isles-a fearful sleep, Which through the caverns dreary and forlorn Of the riven soul sent its foul dreams to sweep With whirlwind swiftness-a fall far and deep, A gulph, a void, a sense of senselessnessThese things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep Their watch in some dim charnel's loneliness, A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless! XXIII. The forms which peopled this terrific trance I well remember-like a choir of devils, Around me they involved a giddy dance; Legions seemed gathering from the misty levels Of Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels, Foul, ceaseless shadows:-thought could not divide The actual world from these entangling evils, Which so bemocked themselves, that I de scried All shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied. XXIV. The sense of day and night, of false and true, Was dead within me. Yet two visions burst That darkness-one, as since that hour I knew, Was not a phantom of the realms accursed Where then my spirit dwelt-but of the first I know not yet, was it a dream or no. But both, though not distincter, were immersed In hues which, when through memory's waste they flow, Make their divided streams more bright and rapid now. XXV. Methought that gate was lifted, and the seven Who brought me thither, four stiff corpses bare, And from the frieze to the four winds of Heaven Hung them on high by the entangled hair: Swarthy were three-the fourth was very fair: As they retired, the golden moon upsprung, And eagerly, out in the giddy air, Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung. XXVI. A woman's shape, now lank and cold and blue, The dwelling of the many-coloured worm, Hung there, the white and hollow cheek I drew To my dry lips-what radiance did inform Those horny eyes? whose was that withered form? Alas, alas! it seemed that Cythna's ghost Laughed in those looks, and that the flesh was warm Within my teeth!-a whirlwind keen as frost Then in its sinking gulphs my sickening spirit tossed. XXVII. Then seemed it that a tameless hurricane Arose, and bore me in its dark career Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane On the verge of formless space-it languished there, And, dying, left a silence lone and drear, More horrible than famine :-in the deep The shape of an old man did then appear, Stately and beautiful, that dreadful sleep His heavenly smiles dispersed, and I could wake and weep. XXVIII. And when the blinding tears had fallen I saw That column, and those corpses, and the moon, And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw My vitals; I rejoiced, as if the boon Of senseless death would be accorded soon ;When from that stony gloom a voice arose, Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune The midnight pines; the grate did then unclose, And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose. XXIX. He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled: As they were loosened by that Hermit old, Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled, To answer those kind looks-he did enfold In linen moist and balmy, and as cold Like earthquake, thro' the chasm of that steep stair did bound, XXX. As lifting me, it fell!-What next I heard, Were billows leaping on the harbour bar, And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred My hair;-I looked abroad, and saw a star Shining beside a sail, and distant far That mountain and its column, the known mark Of those who in the wide deep wandering are, So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark, In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark. XXXI. For now, indeed, over the salt sea billow |