Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain,80
Starred with drops of golden rain.
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale
Thro' the broken mist they sail,85
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea90
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day's azure eyes
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,95
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,100
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline[1];
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,105
Column, tower, and dome, and spire?
- ↑ In Shelley's edition, chrystalline.
stores," because I cannot suppose for a moment that the contraction was Shelley's,—the line being quite in his manner without it. I do not know who saw the volume through the press; but, from the general scarcity of Shelley’s favourite item of punctuation (the pause), I suspect it was Peacock, who, I am told by a friend of his, cut out quantities of Shelley's pauses when revising for press.
