* * * * *

    A wide, wide sea! and on its rear and van
    Amid the stars, the silent meteors ran
    All that still night, and Julio with a cry
    Woke up, and saw them flashing fiercely by.

* * * * *

    Full three times three, its awful veil of night
    Hath Heaven hung before the blessed light;
    And a fair breeze falls o’er the sleeping sea,
    Where Julio is watching Agathe! 
    By sun and darkness hath he bent him over—­
    A mad, moon-stricken, melancholy lover!

    And hardly hath he tasted, night or day,
    Of drink or food, because of Agathe! 
    He sitteth in a dull and dreary mood,
    Like statue in a ruin’d solitude,
    Bearing the brent of sunlight and of shade
    Over the marble of some colonnade.

    The ladye, she hath lost the pearly hue
    Upon her gorgeous brow, where tresses grew
    Luxuriantly as thoughts of tenderness,
    That once were floating in the pure recess
    Of her bright soul.  These are not as they were,
    But are as weeds above a sepulchre,
    Wild waving in the breeze:  her eyes are now
    Sunk deeply under the discolour’d brow,
    That is of sickly yellow, and pale blue,
    Unnaturally blending.  The same hue
    Is on her cheek:  it is the early breath
    Of cold Corruption, the ban dog of Death,
    Falling upon her features.—­Let it be,
    And gaze awhile on Julio, as he
    Is gazing on the corse of Agathe!

    In truth, he seemeth like no living one,
    But is the image of a skeleton: 
    A fearful portrait from the artist tool
    Of Madness—­terrible and wonderful!

    There was no passion there—­no feeling traced
    Under those eyelids, where had run to waste,
    All that was wild, or beautiful, or bright;
    A very cloud was cast upon their light,
    That gave to them the heavy hue of lead;
    And they were lorn, and lustreless, and dead! 
    He sate like vulture from the mountains gray,
    Unsated, that had flown full many a day
    O’er distant land and sea, and was in pride
    Alighted by the lonely ladye’s side.

    He sate like winter o’er the wasted year—­
    Like melancholy winter, drawing near
    To its own death.—­“Oh me! the worm, at last,
    Will gorge upon me, and the autumn blast
    Howl by!—­Where?—­where?—­there is no worm to creep
    Amid the waters of the lonely deep;
    But I will take me Agathe upon
    This sorrowful, sore bosom, and anon,
    Down, down, through azure silence, we shall go,
    Unepitaph’d, to cities far below;
    Where the sea triton, with his winding shell,
    Shall sound our blessed welcome.  We shall dwell
    With many a mariner in his pearly home,
    In bowers of amber weed and