Methought, upon the threshold of a cave

I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled

With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave, Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave.

III.

We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,

And the bright air o'er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
The leafless bough among the leaves alone,
Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown
In this strange vision, so divine to me,
That if I loved before, now love was agony.

IV.

Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended,
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon-when, suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
Sounds gathering upwards!-accents incomplete,
And stifled shrieks, and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet

The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.

V.

The scene was changed, and away, away, away!
Thro' the air and over the sea we sped,1

1 Having classed these two irregular lines among those miracles of telling irregularity so frequent in Shelley's maturer works, I was naturally shocked to find Mr. Rossetti had substituted

Thorough for Thro', with the apology that the line "limped in every previous edition"! To my thinking both lines bound with marvellous appropriateness to the subject. Of

And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,

And the winds bore me-thro' the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited

Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
Upon my flight; and ever as we fled,

They plucked at Cythna-soon to me then clung
A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

VI.

And I lay struggling in the impotence.

Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,
Tho', still deluded, strove the tortured sense

To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound
Which in the light of morn was poured around
Our dwelling-breathless, pale, and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found

With armed men, whose glittering swords were bare,
And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.

VII.

And ere with rapid lips and gathered brow
I could demand the cause-a feeble shriek-
It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,
Arrested me-my mien grew calm and meek,
And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd-'twas Cythna's cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak
Its whirlwind rage:-so I past quietly

Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.

course Thro' must not be slurred, but pronounced with a special stress,

its one heavy syllable doing duty for a whole foot.

VIII.

I started to behold her, for delight

And exultation, and a joyance free,

Solemn, serene and lofty, filled the light

Of the calm smile with which she looked on me :
So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,1

Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her

Farewell! farewell!" she said, as I drew nigh.

"At first my peace was marred by this strange stir, Now I am calm as truth-its chosen minister.

IX.

"Look not so, Laon-say farewell in hope,2 These bloody men are but the slaves who bear Their mistress to her task-it was my scope

The slavery where they drag me now, to share,

And among captives willing chains to wear

Awhile the rest thou knowest-return, dear friend!
Let our first triumph trample the despair

Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,

In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend."

X.

These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,
Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew
With seeming careless glance; not many were
Around her, for their comrades just withdrew
To guard some other victim-so I drew
My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly

All unaware three of their number slew,

And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!

1 Ecstacy in the original edition.

2 There should, possibly, be a full stop here; but as the present sense is

perfectly good,-" Say farewell in hope that these bloody men" &c.,—I do not venture on any change.

XI.

What followed then, I know not-for a stroke On my raised arm and naked head, came down, Filling my eyes with blood-when I awoke, I felt that they had bound me in my swoon, And up a rock which overhangs the town, By the steep path were bearing me below, The plain was filled with slaughter,-overthrown The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.

XII.

Upon that rock a mighty column stood,
Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,
Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude
Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,
Had made a landmark1; o'er its height to fly
Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,
Has power and when the shades of evening lie
On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast
The sunken day-light far thro' the aërial waste.

XIII.

They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath that column, and unbound me there:
And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torch's fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.

1 Had many a landmark, in Mrs. Shelley's editions.

2 Carv'd in the original edition, 3 In Shelley's edition, torches'.

XIV.

They raised me to the platform of the pile,

That column's dizzy height:-the grate of brass
Thro' which they thrust me, open stood the while,
As to its ponderous and suspended mass,

With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!

With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound:
The grate, as they departed to repass,

With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound

Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom were1 drowned.

XV.

The noon was calm and bright:-around that column
The overhanging sky and circling sea

Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn.2
The darkness of brief frenzy past on me,3

So that I knew not my own misery:
The islands and the mountains in the day
Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see

The town among the woods below that lay,

And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.

XVI.

It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed
Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone

Swayed in the air-so bright, that noon did breed

No shadow in the sky beside mine own--
Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone.
Below the smoke of roofs involved in flame
Rested like night, all else was clearly shewn

1 Was in Mrs. Shelley's and Mr. Rossetti's editions; but probably Shelley preferred euphony to grammar here as in many other cases.

No stop here in Shelley's edition.

3 This word has hitherto been printed cast; but Miss Blind (Westminster Review) suggests past; and I have no doubt she is right.