 | Clarel |  |
Now skies distill a vaporous rain;
So looked the sunken slimy plain—
Such semblance of the vacuum shared,
As 'twere the quaking sea-bed bared
By the Caracas. All was still:
So much the more their bosoms thrill
With dream of some withdrawn vast surge
Its timed return about to urge
And whelm them.
But a cry they hear:
The steed of Mortmain, led in rear,
Broke loose and ran. “Horse too run mad?”
Cried Derwent; “shares his rider's mind—
His rider late? shun both their kind?
Poor Swede! But where was it he said
We should rejoin?” “'Tis by Lot's sea,
Remember. And, pray heaven, it be!—
Look, the steed's caught.”
Suspicious ground
They skirt, with ugly bushes crowned;
And thereinto, against surprise,
The vigilant Spahi throws his eyes:
To take of distant chance a bond,
Djalea looks forward, and beyond.
So looked the sunken slimy plain—
Such semblance of the vacuum shared,
As 'twere the quaking sea-bed bared
By the Caracas. All was still:
So much the more their bosoms thrill
With dream of some withdrawn vast surge
Its timed return about to urge
And whelm them.
But a cry they hear:
The steed of Mortmain, led in rear,
Broke loose and ran. “Horse too run mad?”
Cried Derwent; “shares his rider's mind—
His rider late? shun both their kind?
Poor Swede! But where was it he said
We should rejoin?” “'Tis by Lot's sea,
Remember. And, pray heaven, it be!—
Look, the steed's caught.”
Suspicious ground
They skirt, with ugly bushes crowned;
And thereinto, against surprise,
The vigilant Spahi throws his eyes:
To take of distant chance a bond,
Djalea looks forward, and beyond.
At this, some riders feel that awe
Which comes of sense of absent law,
And irreligious human kind,
Relapsed, remanded, reassigned
To chaos and brute passions blind.
Which comes of sense of absent law,
And irreligious human kind,
Relapsed, remanded, reassigned
To chaos and brute passions blind.
239
But is it Jordan, Jordan dear,
That doth that evil bound define
Which borders on the barbarous sphere—
Jordan, even Jordan, stream divine?
In Clarel ran such revery here.
That doth that evil bound define
Which borders on the barbarous sphere—
Jordan, even Jordan, stream divine?
In Clarel ran such revery here.
| Clarel | |