CXLIII.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,

And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.

Hath it indeed been plundered, or but clear'd?

Alas! developed, opens the decay,

When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:

It will not bear the brightness of the day,

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Which streams too much on all, years, man, have reft away.

CXLIV.

But when the rising moon begins to climb

Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
And the low night-breeze waves along the air
The garland-forest, which the grey walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head;

When the light shines serene but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead :

Heroes have trod this spot-'tis on their dust ye tread.

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CXLV.

'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;

'When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ;

'And when Rome falls-the World.' From our own land Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall

In Saxon times, which we are wont to call

Ancient; and these three mortal things are still

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On their foundations, and unaltered all ;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,

The World, the same wide den-of thieves, or what ye

will.

CANTO IV.

OCEAN.

CLXXVIII.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar :
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffined, and unknown.

CLXXX.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay.

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CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war-
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

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CLXXXII.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free And many a tyrant since their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou ;Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime
The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

CLXXXIV.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

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SHELLEY.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

I.

O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O, thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill :
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

II.

Thou on whose stream 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

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