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XII

Sudden, from out that city sprung

A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames that each with quivering tongue

Licked its high domes, and overhead
Among those mighty towers and fanes
Dropped fire, as a volcano rains
Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.

XIII

And hark! a rush as if the deep

Had burst its bonds; she looked behind

And saw over the western steep

A raging flood descend, and wind Through that wide vale; she felt no fear, But said within herself, "Tis clear

XVII

At last her plank an eddy crost,

And bore her to the city's wall,
Which now the flood had reached almost;
It might the stoutest heart appal
To hear the fire roar and hiss
Through the domes of those mighty
palaces.

XVIII

The eddy whirled her round and round
Before a gorgeous gate, which stood
Piercing the clouds of smoke which
bound

Its aëry arch with light like blood;
She looked on that gate of marble clear,
With wonder that extinguished fear.

XIX

These towers are Nature's own, and she For it was filled with sculptures rarest,

To save them has sent forth the sea.

XIV

And now those raging billows came

Where that fair Lady sate, and she
Was borne towards the showering flame
By the wild waves heaped tumultu-
ously

And on a little plank, the flow
Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.

XV

The flames were fiercely vomited

From every tower and every dome, And dreary light did widely shed

Of forms most beautiful and strange, Like nothing human, but the fairest

Of winged shapes, whose legions range Throughout the sleep of those that are, Like this same Lady, good and fair.

XX

And as she looked, still lovelier grew
Those marble forms;-the sculptor

sure

Was a strong spirit, and the hue

Of his own mind did there endure After the touch, whose power had braided

O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, Such grace, was in some sad change

Beneath the smoke which hung its night
On the stained cope of heaven's light.

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Grew tranquil as a woodland river

Winding through hills in solitude;

Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver,

Of the drowning mountains, in and And their fair limbs to float in motion,

As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind

out,

sails

Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.

XXII

While the flood was filling those hollow And their lips moved; one seemed to

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Waked the fair Lady from her sleep, The blood and life within those snowy

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Flows on, and fills all things with melody.

Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,

Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, On which, like one in trance upborne,

but not forget!

II

A breathless awe, like the swift change Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,

Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.

The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven

By the enchantment of thy strain, And on my shoulders wings are woven, To follow its sublime career, Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.

Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incenseblossoms bright,

Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

TO CONSTANTIA

I

THE rose that drinks the fountain dew In the pleasant air of noon,

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By the false cant which on their inno- Yes, the despair which bids a father

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The blood within those veins may be Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart, Which thou with joy shalt fill,

mine own,

But-Tyrant-their polluted souls With fairest smiles of wonder thrown

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