NOTES: _19 lovely Harvard manuscript, 1839; lively 1820. _23 of the morning 1820, 1839; of morning Harvard manuscript. _26 snow Harvard manuscript, 1839; now 1820. _28 And lilies were drooping, white and wan Harvard manuscript. _32 Leaf by leaf, day after day Harvard manuscript; Leaf after leaf, day after day 1820; Leaf after leaf, day by day 1839. _63 mist]mists Harvard manuscript. _96 and sudden flight]and their sudden flight the Harvard manuscript. _98 And under]Under Harvard manuscript. _114 Whether]And if Harvard manuscript. _118 Whether]Or if Harvard manuscript. *** CANCELLED PASSAGE. [This stanza followed 3, 62-65 in the editio princeps, 1820, but was omitted by Mrs. Shelley from all editions from 1839 onwards. It is cancelled in the Harvard manuscript.] Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, Infecting the winds that wander by. *** A VISION OF THE SEA. [Composed at Pisa early in 1820, and published with "Prometheus Unbound" in the same year. A transcript in Mrs. Shelley's handwriting is included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is dated 'April, 1820.'] 'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale: From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven, And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven, She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin _5 And bend, as if Heaven was ruining in, Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass As if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they pass To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound, And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, _10 Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed Through the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lost In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale _15 Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale, Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about; While the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a rout Of death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron, With splendour and terror the black ship environ, _20 Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fire In fountains spout o'er it. In many a spire The pyramid-billows with white points of brine In the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine, As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea. _25 The great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree, While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast Of the whirlwind that stripped it of branches has passed. The intense thunder-balls which are raining from Heaven Have shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. _30 The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk On the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk,