A pageant of poets and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

And thou too, truant from the ranks of light,
Capturing in Shelley's soul thy transient home
As refuge from the phantoms of the night—
Near kinsman of the flower-drift and the foam
And fragile beings fugitive from sight
Haunting the hills, the forests, and the sea
About the Ægean isles and Italy,—
Suffused with thee, in his rare brain awoke
Vision and insight beyond mortal ken
Of elemental tragedies and woes;
Prometheus strangling in the Eternal yoke
Up the Caucasian, lightning-smitten glen,
Fast in his torments' throes;
Laon upon his column, and the crime
Of that abhorrent sire, accursed of Time.
Thine too the ultimate waft, the culminant sweep
Of rapture up the steep
Of the cloud-rack, revelling with winds and birds;
Till winds and waters noosed thee, drowned with sleep,
And quenched his flaming heart and springing words.