On the beach of a northern sea45
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,50
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O'er the billows of the gale;55
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides:
Those unburied bones around60
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.65
Aye, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
'Mid the mountains Euganean70
I stood listening to the paean,
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,.
Thro' the dewy mist they soar75
Like grey shades, till the[1] eastern heaven
- ↑ In Shelley's edition, the is contracted into th', to bring the line within someone's idea of regularity; but Mrs. Shelley restores the. I say "re-
