AN ODE OF THE TUSCAN SHORE.

When the Spirits that are masters Of the ever-ready storm, And that love to hound the waters, To destroy and to deform, See a mortal in their power They prepare a joyous hour, Venting their primeval hatred Of the thing whose blood is warm. And they lay on ocean’s surface Their innumerable hands, And each hand creates a billow That advances and expands; Till, amid the petrel’s screaming, Rope and tattered sail are streaming High above the seething water From the mast that still withstands. But then hate is blind: they know not What each human prey is worth: Not more cruel than impartial Is their elemental mirth: And their fury is not keener O’er the greater than the meaner, Though their victim were a Shelley And the glory of the earth. Look around thee in the sunshine; Watch this satin-surfaced deep, Which alone some rolling dolphins Stir out yonder in its sleep, Till upon the sea shall settle Sunset hues of molten metal, Red and bright as crater gleamings, And the noon shall cease to creep. Here was washed ashore the greatest Of the victims snatched away By the Spirits that are masters Of the wind and of the spray; When the waves might have exulted O’er the body they insulted With a shriller wilder clamour Than since Nature’s earliest day! Cæsar braved the great Sea Spirits, And he bade his men row on; And he cried: “Ye carry Cæsar: Then why tremble and turn wan?” And the great waves roared more loudly; But his galley sailed out proudly From the peril of the tempest Like an onward-hurried swan. Yet the world would scarce have missed him— There be Cæsars more than one: But a poet like to Shelley, Where be such beneath the sun? And mankind had lost a treasure Past all mourning and all measure, When the beach-waves gently shelved him With a moan for what was done. For an English ear, the breakers On this fatal Tuscan shore Seemed to lisp the name of Shelley, And to mourn it evermore; And the name appears to mingle With the rolling of the shingle And with every sound of Nature Which he lived but to adore. Oh, I hear it in the murmur Of the fragrant woods of pine As the sea-breeze softly hurries Through their long-extended line; And I hear it faintly coming From the never-ending humming Of the world of busy insects That the undergrowths confine. ’Tis the spot; and nought discordant Mars its beauty and repose. All along the tideless margin Pine or bay or ilex grows, Filled with an eternal warble; While Carrara’s crags of marble, Bare and lofty, print the azure, And, to landward, all enclose. All is peace and glorious sunshine; Nature seems redeemed from war. Nothing stirs from beach to offing, Where a few feluccas are, Waiting for the breeze that’s lazy; While beyond, where all is hazy, Like the ghost of dwindled power Loometh Elba, faint and far. But his genius knew no Elba, And his star, without decline, Was extinguished at its zenith In the wild and tossing brine; Not war’s red and lurid planet As of incandescent granite, But a star of whiter radiance, Clear, effulgent and divine. Mighty treasures lie for ever In each slimy ocean cave; Galleons with their gold lie buried Where the dark depth knows no wave; But the total of their measure Matches not the matchless treasure That in yonder stretch of water Has for ever found a grave: There the great unwritten poems Of a mighty poet lie— Unborn children of a lineage Which, once born, may never die. But the water mirrors heaven With the smile of one forgiven, While the breakers in the sunshine Sing an endless lullaby.