18. 
I watched until the shades of evening wrapped
Earth like an exhalation—­then the bark
Moved, for that calm was by the sunset snapped. 
It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark: 
Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark 1265
Its path no more!—­I sought to close mine eyes,
But like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark;
I would have risen, but ere that I could rise,
My parched skin was split with piercing agonies.

19. 
I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever 1270
Its adamantine links, that I might die: 
O Liberty! forgive the base endeavour,
Forgive me, if, reserved for victory,
The Champion of thy faith e’er sought to fly.—­
That starry night, with its clear silence, sent 1275
Tameless resolve which laughed at misery
Into my soul—­linked remembrance lent
To that such power, to me such a severe content.

20. 
To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair
And die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun 1280
Its shafts of agony kindling through the air
Moved over me, nor though in evening dun,
Or when the stars their visible courses run,
Or morning, the wide universe was spread
In dreary calmness round me, did I shun 1285
Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead
From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.

21. 
Two days thus passed—­I neither raved nor died—­
Thirst raged within me, like a scorpion’s nest
Built in mine entrails; I had spurned aside 1290
The water-vessel, while despair possessed
My thoughts, and now no drop remained!  The uprest
Of the third sun brought hunger—­but the crust
Which had been left, was to my craving breast
Fuel, not food.  I chewed the bitter dust, 1295
And bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.

22. 
My brain began to fail when the fourth morn
Burst o’er the golden isles—­a fearful sleep,
Which through the caverns dreary and forlorn
Of the riven soul, sent its foul dreams to sweep 1300
With whirlwind swiftness—­a fall far and deep,—­
A gulf, a void, a sense of senselessness—­
These things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep
Their watch in some dim charnel’s loneliness,
A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless! 1305

23. 
The forms which peopled this terrific trance
I well remember—­like a choir of devils,
Around me they involved a giddy dance;
Legions seemed gathering from the misty levels
Of Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels, 1310
Foul, ceaseless shadows:—­thought could not divide
The actual world from these entangling evils,
Which so bemocked themselves, that I descried
All shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied.