That I may tremble at his tyranny;
    Or am I slave? a very, very jest
    To the sarcastic waters? let me breast
    The base insulters, and defy them so,
    In this lone little skiff—­I am your foe! 
    Ye raving, lion-like, and ramping seas,
    That open up your nostrils to the breeze,
    And fain would swallow me!  Do ye not fly,
    Pale, sick, and gurgling, as I pass you by?”

    “Lift up! and let me see, that I may tell
    Ye can be mad, and strange, and terrible;
    That ye have power, and passion, and a sound
    As of the flying of an angel round
    The mighty world; that ye are one with time,
    And in the great primordium sublime
    Were nursed together, as an infant-twain,—­
    A glory and a wonder!  I would fain
    Hold truce, thou elder brother! for we are,
    In feature, as the sun is to a star,
    So are we like, and we are touch’d in tune
    With lunacy as music; and the moon,
    That setteth the tides sentinel before
    Thy camp of waters, on the pebbled shore,
    And measures their great footsteps to and fro,
    Hath lifted up into my brain the flow
    Of this mad tide of blood.—­Ay! we are like
    In foam and frenzy; the same winds do strike,
    The same fierce sun-rays, from their battlement
    Of fire! so, when I perish impotent
    Before the night of death, they’ll say of me,
    He died as mad and frantic, as the sea!”

    A cloud stood for the east, a cloud like night,
    Like a huge vulture, and the blessed light
    Of the great sun grew shadow’d awfully: 
    It seem’d to mount up from the mighty sea,
    Shaking the showers from its solemn wings,
    And grew, and grew, and many a myriad springs,
    Were on its bosom, teeming full of rain. 
    There fell a terrible and wizard chain
    Of lightning, from its black and heated forge,
    And the dark waters took it to their gorge,
    And lifted up their shaggy flanks in wonder
    With rival chorus to the peal of thunder,
    That wheel’d in many a squadron terrible
    The stern black clouds, and as they rose and fell
    They oozed great showers; and Julio held up
    His wasted hands, in likeness of a cup,
    And drank the blessed waters, and they roll’d
    Upon his cheeks like tears, but sadly cold!—­
    ’Twas very strange to look on Agathe! 
    How the quick lightnings, in their elfin play,
    Stream’d pale upon her features, and they were
    Sickly, like tapers in a sepulchre!

    The ship! that self same ship, that Julio knew
    Had pass’d him, with her panic-stricken crew,
    She gleams amid the storm, a shatter’d thing
    Of pride and lordly beauty:  her fair wing
    Of sail is wounded—­the proud pennon gone: 
    Dark, dark she sweepeth like an eagle, on
    Through waters that are battling