I. THERE lies betwixt dead Pisa and the sea | |
A haunted forest, with a heart so deep, | |
That none could sit beneath its pines to weep, | |
But it would throb for them mysteriously. | |
Here, in this place I dreamed there met with me | 5 |
The spirit who his part in it doth keep, | |
Albeit his starry orbit now hath sweep | |
As vast as Galileos, if more free. | |
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He drew me on to where the hollow beat | |
Of waves upon a shore seemed to my mind | 10 |
The moan of a remorseful soul, to meet | |
The homicidal Sea, whose passion blind | |
Had slain him; as it writhed about my feet | |
Methought his spirit past me on the wind. | |
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II. Wild sea, that drank his life to quench the thirst | 15 |
Thou hadst of him; and all devouring Fire, | |
Who made his body thine with love as dire; | |
Air pregnate with his breath, and thou accurst, | |
Mother of Sorrows, Earth, whose claim is first | |
Upon thy children dead, who from the pyre | 20 |
Received his dust,what did his soul require | |
Wring from yeere your Protean bonds he burst? | |
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Perchance ye failed to reach him, and he hath | |
Oer-leapt the rounds of change the earthlier dead | |
May weary through, nor needing Lethean bath | 25 |
To speed anew his souls etherial tread, | |
Hath left the elements, spurned from his path, | |
To challenge grosser spirits in his stead. | |
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