A curse! a curse!—a lonely man is there By the deep waters, with a burden fair Clasped in his wearied arras.—’Tis he; ’tis he The brain-struck Julio and Agathè! His cowl is back—flung back upon the breeze,— His lofty brow is haggard with disease, As if a wild libation had been pour’d Of lightning on those temples, and they shower’d A dismal perspiration, like a rain, Shook by the thunder and the hurricane! He dropt upon a rock, and by him placed, Over a bed of sea-pinks growing waste, The silent ladye, and he mutter’d wild, Strange words, about a mother, and no child. “And I shall wed thee, Agathè! although Ours be no God—blest bride—even so!” And from the sand he took a silver shell, That had been wasted by the fall and swell Of many a moon-borne tide into a ring— A rude, rude ring; it was a snow-white thing, Where a lone hermit limpet slept and died, In ages far away.—“Thou art a bride, Sweet Agathè! wake up; we must not linger.” He press’d the ring upon her chilly finger, And to the sea-bird, on its sunny stone, Shouted,—“Pale priest! that liest all alone Upon thy ocean-altar, rise away To our glad bridal!” and its wings of gray All lazily it spread, and hover’d by With a wild shriek—a melancholy cry! Then swooping slowly o’er the heaving breast Of the blue ocean, vanish’d in the west. And Julio is chanting to his bride, A merry song of his wild heart, that died On the soft breeze through pinks beside the sea, All rustling in their beauty gladsomely. SONG. A rosary of stars, love! we’ll count them as we go Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below, And we’ll o’er the pearly moon-beam, as it lieth in the sea In beauty and in glory, like a shadowing of thee! A rosary of stars, love! a prayer as we glide And a whisper in the wind, and a murmur on the tide! And we’ll say a fair adieu to the flowers that are seen, With shells of silver sown in radiancy between. A rosary of stars, love! the purest they shall be, Like spirits of pale pearl, in the bosom of the sea; Now help thee, virgin mother! with a blessing as we go, Upon the laughing waters, that are wandering below. He lifted the dead girl, and is away To where a light boat in its moorings lay, Like a sea-cradle, rocking to the hush Of the nurse waters; with a frantic rush O’er the wild field of tangles he hath sped, And through the shoaling waves that fell and fled Upon the furrow’d beach.