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.

III.

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.

IV.

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.

V.

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 seemed to lie
Far, deep, and motionless; while thro' the sky
The pallid semicircle of the moon

Past1 on, in slow and moving majesty;

Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon

But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.

VI.

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.

VII.

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.

1 This is another of the words which Shelley seems to have chosen to spell phonetically at this period, and which

his editors have generally chosen to alter.

VIII.

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 aërial 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 yells the wide air's solitude.

IX.

A shaft of light upon its wings descended,
And every golden feather gleamed therein-
Feather and scale inextricably blended.1

The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin
Shone thro' the plumes its coils were twined within
By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high
And far, the neck receding lithe and thin,
Sustained a crested head, which warily

Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's stedfast eye.

X.

Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling
With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed
Incessantly-sometimes on high concealing

Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed,
Drooped thro' the air; and still it shrieked and wailed,

1 I suspect the period at the end of this line and the pause at the end of the preceding one should change places. I leave matters as Shelley left them, because there may have been no oversight, the present construction being possible; but it would be more clearly

sequent to read the passage thus: "A shaft of light descended on the eagle's wings, and every golden feather in them gleamed. Feather and scale being blended inextricably, the serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin shone through the plumes," &c.

And casting back its eager head, with beak

And talon unremittingly assailed

The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek

Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak.

XI.

What life, what power, was kindled and arose
Within the sphere of that appalling fray!
For, from the encounter of those wondrous foes,
A vapour like the sea's suspended spray
Hung gathered: in the void air, far away,

Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,
Where'er the Eagle's talons made their way,
Like sparks into the darkness;-as they sweep,
Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.

XII.

Swift chances in that combat-many a check,
And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil;
Sometimes the Snake around his enemy's neck
Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,
Until the Eagle, faint with pain and toil,
Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea
Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil

His adversary, who then reared on high
His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.

XIII.

Then on the white edge of the bursting surge,
Where they had sank together, would the Snake
Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge

The wind with his wild writhings; for to break

1 No commas at life and power, in Shelley's edition.

2 Wond'rous in Shelley's edition; but

I take the apostrophe to be a printer's freak.

I

That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake
The strength of his unconquerable wings

As in despair, and with his sinewy neck,
Dissolve in sudden shock those linkèd rings,

Then soar as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.

XIV.

Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,
Thus long, but unprevailing:-the event
Of that portentous fight appeared at length:
Until the lamp of day was almost spent

It had endured, when lifeless,1 stark, and rent,
Hung high that mighty Serpent, and at last
Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent,

With clang of wings and scream the Eagle past,
Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast.

XV.

And with it fled the tempest, so that ocean
And earth and sky shone through the atmosphere-
Only, 'twas strange to see the red commotion
Of waves like mountains o'er the sinking sphere
Of sun-set sweep, and their fierce roar to hear
Amid the calm: down the steep path I wound
To the sea-shore-the evening was most clear
And beautiful, and there the sea I found

Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.

XVI.

There was a Woman, beautiful as morning,
Sitting beneath the rocks, upon the sand
Of the waste sea-fair as one flower adorning

1 Lifeless is either an oversight or meant to imply exhausted merely, as

we learn further on that the snake was still alive.