Along the dark and ruffled waters fled

The straining boat.-A whirlwind swept it on,
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,

Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.

The waves arose. Higher and higher still

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Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war

Of wave ruining1 on wave, and blast on blast
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
With dark obliterating course, he sate:
As if their genii were the ministers
Appointed to conduct him to the light
Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate

Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,
The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined2 in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;
Night followed, clad with stars. On every side
More horribly the multitudinous streams

Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass.
That fell, convulsing ocean.3

1 Ruining is the word in Shelley's edition, and in Mrs. Shelley's of 1824; but in her other editions it is altered to running.

2 Entwin'd in Shelley's edition; but see note at p. 22.

Safely fled

325

330

335

340

345

3 This punctuation strikes me as being Shelley's deliberate choice, though incorrect: probably no other stop would yield him a long enough pause before Safely. Mr. Rossetti alters it.

As if that frail and wasted human form,
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight

The moon arose and lo! the etherial1 cliffs
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around

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Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves 355 Bursting and eddying irresistibly

Rage and resound for ever.-Who shall save?—

The boat fled on,-the boiling torrent drove,

The crags closed round with black and jaggèd arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea,
And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
Ingulphed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
With unrelaxing speed.- Vision and Love!"
The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
Shall not divide us long!'

The boat pursued

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365

The windings of the cavern.

Day-light shone

370

At length upon that gloomy river's flow;

Now, where the fiercest war among the waves

Is calm, on the unfathomable stream

The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,
Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,
Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound

That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ;

So spelt in Shelley's edition of
Alastor, invariably.

In Shelley's edition, cavern'd.

375

D

Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
With alternating dash the knarlèd1 roots

Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,

A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
Till on the verge of the extremest curve,
Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot

Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides

Is left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sink
Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
Of that resistless gulph embosom it?

Now shall it fall?-A wandering stream of wind,
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks

Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,

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385

390

395

400

Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!

The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,

With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
Where the embowering trees recede, and leave

A little space of green expanse, the cove

405

Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,
Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay

1 I suspect this obsolete spelling was adopted advisedly, and that the k

410

was meant to be pronounced; but see Appendix, "On Certain Words."

Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
But on his heart its solitude returned,

And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid

In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame
Had yet performed its ministry: it hung
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud

Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods

The noonday sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of their1 aëry rocks
Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank,
Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty 2 arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching, frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang

Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,

Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around

Mrs. Shelley substituted those for their in 1824, and has been followed in all editions of any authority. I cannot see sufficient advantage in disturbing Shelley's text.

415

420

425

430

435

440

2 Immeasurable is substituted for immense and knotty in the Posthumous Poems; but Mrs. Shelley restored the right reading in 1839.

The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,

445

Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 450 Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,
A soul-dissolving odour, to invite

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,
Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above,
And each depending leaf, and every speck
Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star
Between one1 foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or, painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,

1 It is worth considering whether one is not a misprint for the.

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460

465

470