Spring's messengers descending from the skies,

The buds foreknow their life-this hope must ever rise.

XXXVIII.

"So years had past, when sudden earthquake rent
The depth of ocean, and the cavern crackt
With sound, as if the world's wide continent
Had fallen in universal ruin wrackt;

And thro' the cleft streamed in one cataract,

The stifling waters: when I woke, the flood
Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked
Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode

Before me yawned-a chasm desert,1 and bare, and broad.

XXXIX.

Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:

I stood upon a point of shattered stone,
And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously
With splash and shock into the deep-anon
All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.
I felt that I was free! the Ocean-spray

Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone
Around, and in my hair the winds did play
Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.

XL.

"My spirit moved upon the sea like wind
Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,
Tho' it can wake the still cloud, and unbind
The strength of tempest: day was almost over,
When thro' the fading light I could discover
A ship approaching-its white sails were fed

1 This is another instance of desert (adjective) being spelt with an e in

stead of an a. See note on this word at p. 175.

With the north wind-its moving shade did cover

The twilight deep; the mariners in dread

Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

XLI.

"And when they saw one sitting on a crag, They sent a boat to me;-the sailors rowed In awe thro' many a new and fearful jag Of overhanging rock, thro' which there flowed The foam of streams that cannot make abode. They came and questioned me, but when they heard My voice, they became silent, and they stood And moved as men in whom new love had stirred Deep thoughts: so to the ship we past without a word.

Canto Eighth.

I.

"I SATE beside the steersman then, and gazing Upon the west, cried, 'Spread the sails! behold! The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing Over the mountains yet;-the City of Gold Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold; The stream is fleet-the north breathes steadily Beneath the stars, they tremble with the cold! Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea!— Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!'

II.

"The Mariners obeyed-the Captain stood

Aloof, and whispering to the Pilot, said,

Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued

By wicked ghosts: a Phantom of the Dead,
The night before we sailed, came to my bed
In dream, like that!'-The Pilot then replied,
'It cannot be she is a human Maid—

Her low voice makes you weep-she is some bride, Or daughter of high birth-she can be nought beside.'

III.

"We past the islets, borne by wind and stream, And as we sailed, the Mariners came near And thronged around to listen ;-in the gleam Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear; 'Ye all are human-yon broad moon gives light1 To millions who the self-same likeness wear, Even while I speak-beneath this very night, Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.

IV.

"What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home,2 Even for yourselves on a beloved shore:

For some, fond eyes are pining till they come,
How they will greet him when his toils are o'er,
And laughing babes rush from the well-known door!
Is this your care? ye toil for your own good-
Ye feel and think-has some immortal power
Such purposes? or in a human mood,

Dream ye that God thus builds for man in solitude?

V.

"What then is God? ye mock yourselves, and give A human heart to what ye cannot know:

As if the cause of life could think and live !5

'Twere as if man's own works should feel, and shew The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,

1 At this point, where Cythna begins to repeat her speech to the seamen, Shelley's edition omits to give the double marks of quotation; and I have followed Mrs. Shelley, who supplied them where needed throughout the speech. It should be stated that, in Shelley's revised copy, two turned commas (instead of one) are marked in pencil,-whether by Shelley I cannot say; but there was no cancel printed of this leaf, so that no change

was made.

2 In Mrs. Shelley's and Mr. Rossetti's editions, a home.

34 For that God we read some Power in The Revolt of Islam, and, in the next line, What is that Power for What then is God.

5 This is another line marked out for condemnation in my copy there is a pencil cross against it; but this is struck out in ink,-apparently the same ink as the revisions are made in.

And he be like to them. Lo! Plague is free

To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow, Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity

Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny.

VI.1

"What then is God? Some moon-struck sophist stood Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood The Form he saw and worshipped was his own, His likeness in the world's vast mirror shewn; And 'twere an innocent dream, but that a faith Nursed by fear's dew of poison, grows thereon, And that men say, God has appointed Death On all who scorn his will to wreak immortal wrath.

VII.

Men say they have seen God, and heard from God, Or known from others who have known such things, And that his will is all our law, a rod

To scourge us into slaves 2-that Priests and Kings, Custom, domestic sway, aye, all that brings Man's free-born soul beneath the oppressor's heel, Are his strong ministers, and that the stings. Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel, Tho' truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

VIII.3

"And it is said, that God will punish wrong; Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!

1 In The Revolt of Islam, in this stanza, we read What is that Power for What then is God, in line 1, that Power has chosen for God has appointed in line 8, and it's laws for his will in line 9.

2 The Revolt of Islam version is Men say that they themselves have heard

and seen,

Or known from others who have known such things,

A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between

Wields an invisible rod.

In the MS. revision the third line originally stood

A Shade, a Form, that, earth and Heaven between.

3 In The Revolt of Islam we again