The ship! that self-same ship, that Julio knew Had passed him, with her panic-stricken crew, She gleams amid the storm, a shatter’d thing Of pride and lordly beauty; her fair wing Of sail is wounded—the proud pennon gone! Dark, dark she sweepeth like an eagle, on Through waters that are battling to and fro, And tossing their great giant shrouds of snow Over her deck.—Ahead, and there is seen A black, strange line of breakers, down between The awful surges, lifting up their manes Like great sea-lions. Quick and high she strains Her foaming keel—that solitary ship! As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap The cursed barrier: forward, fast and fast— Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring Of the exulting sea rose bantering Over her ruin; and the mighty crew That mann’d her deck, were seen, a straggling few, Far scatter’d on the surges. Julio felt The impulse of that hour, and low he knelt, Within his own light bark—a pray’rful man! And clasp’d his lifeless bride; and to her wan, Cold cheek did lay his melancholy brow.— “Save thou a mariner!” he starteth now To hear that dying cry; and there is one, All worn and wave-wet, by his bark anon, Clinging, in terror of the ireful sea, A fair-hair’d mariner! But suddenly He saw the pale dead ladye by a flame Of blue and livid lightning, and there came Over his features blindness, and the power Of his strong hands grew weak,—a giant shower Of foam rose up, and swept him far along; And Julio saw him buffetting the throng Of the great eddying waters, till they went Over him—a wind-shaken cerement! Then terribly he laugh’d, and rose above His soulless bride—the ladye of his love! Lifting him up in all his wizard glee; And he did wave, before the frantic sea, His wasted arm.—“Adieu! adieu! adieu! Thou sawest how we were; thou sawest, too, Thou wert not so; for in the inmost shrine Of my deep heart are thoughts that are not thine. And thou art gone, fair mariner! in foam And music-murmurs to thy blessed home— Adieu! adieu! Thou sawest how that she Sleeps in her holy beauty tranquilly: And when the fair and floating vision breaks From her pure brow, and Agathè awakes— Till then, we meet not; so, adieu, adieu!” Still on before the sullen tempest flew, Fast as a meteor star, the lonely bark; And Julio bent over to the dark, The solitary sea, for close beside Floated the stringed harp of one that died, In that wild shipwreck, and he drew it home With madness to his bosom; the white foam Was o’er its strings; and on the streaming sail He wiped them, running with his fingers pale, Along the tuneless notes, that only gave Seldom responses to his wandering stave! O THE HARP.