Or but a breathless fancy, that was ever
Adrift upon the wilderness of Time,
That knew no impulse, but was left sublime
To play at its own will!--that I were hush'd
At night by silver cataracts, that gush'd
Through flowers of fairy hue, and then to die
Away, with all before me passing by,
Like a fair vision I had lived to see,
And died to see no more!--It cannot be!
By this right hand! I feel it is not so,
And by the beating of a heart below,
That strangely feareth for eternity!"

He said, and gazing on the lonely sea,
Far off he saw, like an ascending cloud,
To westward, a bright island, lifted proud
Amid the struggling waters, and the light
Of the great sun was on its clifted height,
Scattering golden shadow, like a mirror;
But the gigantic billows sprung in terror
Upon its rock-built and eternal shore,
With silver foams that fell in fury o'er
A thousand sunny breakers. Far above,
There stood a wild and solitary grove
Of aged pines, all leafless but their brows,
Where a green group of tempest-stricken boughs
Was waving now and then, and to and fro,
And the pale moss was clustering below.

Then Julio saw, and bent his head away