 | Lucile |  |
XXXV.
Like a furnace, the fervid, intense occident355
On the sick metal sky. And, as out of a cup
Some witch watches boiling wild portents arise,
Monstrous clouds, mass'd, misshapen, and tinged with strange dyes,
Hover'd over the red fume, and changed to weird shapes
As of snakes, salamanders, efts, lizards, storks, apes,
Chimeras, and hydras: whilst—ever the same—
In the midst of all these (creatures fused by his flame,
And changed by his influence!), changeless, as when,
Ere he lit down to death generations of men,
O'er that crude and ungainly creation, which there
With wild shapes this cloud-world seem'd to mimic in air,
The eye of Heaven's all-judging witness, he shone,
And shall shine on the ages we reach not—the sun!
| Lucile | |