Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime: Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seem’d to hear the dully sound Of human footsteps fall. As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moon-rise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea; And knows not if it be thunder or a sound Of rocks[43] thrown down, or one deep cry Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, “I have found A new land, but I die”. She howl’d aloud, “I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin, And save me lest I die?” So when four years were wholly finished, She threw her royal robes away. “Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said, “Where I may mourn and pray.[44] “Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are So lightly, beautifully built: Perchance I may return with others there When I have purged my guilt.”[45] [1] 1833. I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright From great broad meadow bases of deep grass. [2] 1833. “While the great world.” [3] “The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that surrounds the planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet revolves. Saturn rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a half hours, but the shadow of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more motion than is seen in the shadow of a top spinning so rapidly that it seems to be standing still.” Rowe and Webb’s note, which I gladly borrow. [4] 1833 and 1842. Steadfast. [5] After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:— “And richly feast within thy palace hall, Like to the dainty bird that sups, Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial, Draining the honey cups.” [6] In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza beginning, “I take possession of men’s minds and deeds”; in 1842 they were transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the alterations on them see _infra._ [7] 1833. Gloom, Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass Ending in stately rooms. [8] 1833. All various, all beautiful, Looking all ways, fitted to every mood. [9] Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, “One showed an English home,” afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88. [10] 1833. Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land Lit with a low round moon, Among brown rocks a man upon the sand Went weeping all alone. [11] These three stanzas were added in 1842. [12] Thus in 1833:— One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags, Below sun-smitten icy spires Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags, Deep trenched with thunder fires. [13] Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its place:— Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers, Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers Trellised with bunchy vine.