XV.

The flames1 were fiercely vomited
From every tower and every dome,
And dreary light did widely shed

O'er that vast flood's suspended foam,
Beneath the smoke which hung its night
On the stained cope of heaven's light.

XVI.

The plank whereon that Lady sate

Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Between the peaks so desolate

Of the drowning mountains, in and out,

As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails-
While the flood was filling those hollow vales.

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.

1 Mr. Rossetti was unquestionably right in substituting flames for waves, the word which appeared here in all editions prior to his.

In Mrs. Shelley's editions, from 1824 onward, mountain instead of mountains.

XIX.

For it was filled with sculptures rarest,
Of forms most beautiful and strange,
Like nothing human, but the fairest

Of winged shapes, whose legions range
Throughout the sleep of those that1 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
Such grace, was in some sad change faded.

XXI.

She looked, the flames were dim, the flood
Grew tranquil as a woodland river

Winding through hills in solitude;

Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their fair limbs to float in motion,

Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.

XXII.

And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
When suddenly the mountain crackt,
And through the chasm the flood2 did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract:

The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin dream
Lifted the Lady from the stream.

1 In Mrs. Shelley's collected editions, who; but that in the Posthumous Poems.

1

2 In the collected editions, floor; but flood in the Posthumous Poems.

XXIII.

The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
And she arose, while from the veil

Of her dark eyes the dream did creep,
And she walked about as one who knew
That sleep has sights as clear and true
As any waking eyes can view.

TO CONSTANTIA,

SINGING.1

I.

THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,

Perchance were death indeed!-Constantia, turn!

In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,

Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;

Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet,

And from thy touch like fire doth leap.

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet,
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

1 Mrs. Shelley first gave this poem, without date, in the volume of Posthumous Poems; but in the collected editions she placed it among the poems of 1817. It is not, I believe, known to whom it refers; but Mr. Rossetti

thinks the name "is most probably a fancy name given to the lady in question by Shelley in consequence of his enthusiasm for the heroine, Constantia Dudley, of a novel by Brockden Brown entitled Ormond."

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 inchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,

To follow its sublime career,

Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere,

Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.

III.

Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers
O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick-
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes;

My heart is quivering like a flame;

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.1

IV.

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.-
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,

1 In the Posthumous Poems, extacics: in the collected editions, ecstacies.

On which, like one in trance upborne,
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 incense-blossoms bright,
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

TO CONSTANTIA.1

I.

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

Grows pale and blue with altered hue-
In the gaze of the nightly moon;

For the planet of frost, so cold and bright,
Makes it wan with her borrowed light.

II.

Such is my heart-roses are fair,

And that at best a withered blossom;

But thy false care did idly wear

Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom;
And fed with love, like air and dew,
Its growth-

1 This fragment was first given by Mrs. Shelley in the first edition of

1839, among Poems of 1817.