The relics of a weed-inwoven cot, Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was hot When he was cold. The birds that were his That fire, more warm and bright than life or hope (Which to the martyr makes his dungeon. More joyous than the heaven's majestic cope To his oppressor), warring with decay,Or he could ne'er have lived years, day by day. 19. Nor was his state so lone as you might think. He had tamed every newt and snake and toad, And every seagull which sailed down to drink ere the death-mist went aboard. Those 20. And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at night Came licking with blue tongues his veinèd feet; And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, In many entangled figures quaint and sweet To some enchanted music they would danceUntil they vanished at the first moon-glance 21. He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed The summer dewdrops in the golden dawn; And, ere the hoar-frost vanished, he could read Its pictured footprints, as on spots of lawn Its delicate brief touch in silence weaves The likeness of the wood's remembered leaves. 22. And many a fresh Spring-morn would he awaken While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron Quivering in crimson fire the peaks unshaken Of mountains and blue isles which did environ With air-clad crags that plain of land and sea,— And feel liberty. 23. And in the moonless nights, when the dim ocean Heaved underneath the heaven, Starting from dreams Communed with the immeasurable world; And felt his life beyond his limbs dilated, Till his mind grew like that it contemplated. 24. His food was the wild fig and strawberry ; The milky pine-nuts which the autumnal blast Shakes into the tall grass; and such small fry As from the sea by winter-storms are cast; And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground. 25. And so were kindled powers and thoughts which made His solitude less dark. When memory came (For years gone by leave each a deepening shade), His spirit basked in its internal flame,As, when the black storm hurries round at night, The fisher basks beside his red firelight. 26. Yet human hopes and cares and faiths and errors, Like billows unawakened by the wind, Slept in Marenghi still; but that all terrors, Weakness, and doubt, had withered in his mind. His couch 27. And, when he saw beneath the sunset's planet A black ship walk over the crimson ocean,Its pennons streaming on the blasts that fan it, Its sails and ropes all tense and without motion, Like the dark ghost of the unburied even Striding across the orange-coloured heaven,— 28. The thought of his own kind who made the soul Which sped that wingèd shape through night and day, The thought of his own country NAPLES, December, 1818. XV. THE world is dreary, And I am weary Of wandering on without thee, Mary; A joy was erewhile In thy voice and thy smile, And 'tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary. 1819. XVI. TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. THY little footsteps on the sands |