ng 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 exulted sea rose bantering
Over her ruin; and the mighty crew,
That mann'd her decks, 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 prayful 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 buffeting 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 soul-less 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 Agathe 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