Laon and Cythna.'

ΟΣΑΙΣ ΔΕ ΒΡΟΤΟΝ ΕΘΝΟΣ ΑΓΛΑΙΑΙΣ ΑΠΤΟΜΕΣΘΑ,

ΠΕΡΑΙΝΕΙ ΠΡΟΣ ΕΣΧΑΤΟΝ

ΠΛΟΟΝ ΝΑΥΣΙ Δ' ΟΥΤΕ ΠΕΖΟΣ ΙΩΝ ΑΝ ΕΥΡΟΙΣ

ΕΣ ΥΠΕΡΒΟΡΕΩΝ ΑΓΩΝΑ ΘΑΥΜΑΤΑΝ ΟΔΟΝ.

PIND. Pyth. Χ.

1 In my copy Shelley has here cancelled the title Laon and Cythna, and written over it Othman (the name of the tyrant: see Canto V, stanzas XXXII and XXXIII). Othman, again, is struck through, and The Revolt of Islam substituted in Mr. Charles Ollier's handwriting.

Canto First.

I.

WHEN the last hope of trampled France had failed

Like a brief dream of unremaining glory,

From visions of despair I rose, and scaled

The peak of an aërial promontory,

Whose caverned base with the vext1 surge was hoary; And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken

Each cloud, and every wave:-but transitory

:

The calm for sudden, the firm earth was shaken, As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken.

II.

So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder
Burst in far peals along the waveless deep,
When, gathering fast, around, above and under,

1 Shelley seems to have had a leaning to this phonetic method of spelling vexed and several similar words; and I see no more reason for altering them than there would be for changing, in the like particulars, the deliberate orthography of his contemporary Walter Savage Landor.

I take the punctuation of the text to be as Shelley intended it, and So as I stood to mean As I stood thus, referring to the station he had taken on the promontory of stanza I. The meaning might be So (therefore), as I stood; but this reading seems to me inconsequent.

Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep,
Until their complicating lines did steep
The orient sun in shadow:-not a sound
Was heard; one horrible repose did keep

The forests and the floods, and all around Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.

III.

Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps
Earth and the ocean. See the lightnings yawn
Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps
Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on,

One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown,
Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by.
There is a pause-the sea-birds, that were gone
Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy
What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.

IV.

For, where the irresistible storm had cloven
That fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen
Fretted with many a fair cloud interwoven
Most delicately, and the ocean green,
Beneath that opening spot of blue serene,

Quivered like burning emerald: calm was spread
On all below; but far on high, between

Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled, Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed.

V.

For ever, as the war became more fierce

Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high,

That spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce
The woof of those white clouds, which seemed to lie
Far, deep, and motionless; while thro' the sky
The pallid semicircle of the moon

Past1 on, in slow and moving majesty;

Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon

But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.

VI.

I could not choose but gaze; a fascination

Dwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew
My fancy thither, and in expectation

Of what I knew not, I remained :-the hue
Of the white moon, amid that heaven so blue,
Suddenly stained with shadow did appear;
A speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew,
Like a great ship in the sun's sinking sphere
Beheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear.

VII.

Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains,

Dark, vast, and overhanging, on a river

Which there collects the strength of all its fountains,

Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver,
Sails, oars, and stream, tending to one endeavour;

So, from that chasm of light a winged Form
On all the winds of heaven approaching ever

Floated, dilating as it came: the storm

Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm.

1 This is another of the words which Shelley seems to have chosen to spell phonetically at this period, and which

his editors have generally chosen to alter.