A VISION OF THE SEA.1 'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass 1 Assigned to the year 1820 in Mrs. Shelley's Collections. It is highly curious that in this poem a great number of past tenses &c. are contracted, in the first edition, by the omission of the letter e, contrary to Shelley's usual practice. As this must be owing to an accident of some kind, I have restored the e in each case: the words in question are seemed in line 7, tossed in line 11, hurled in line 21, shattered in line 30, hungering in line 33, seemed in line 48, coloured and gathered in line 49, rained in line 57, remained in line 61, upgathered in line 69, upcurled in line 108, scattered in line 115, and crushed in line 140. As to the nature of the accident by which this poem obtained so great a number of instances of this form I can only suggest (1) that it may have been edited in some periodical before its appearance with Prometheus Unbound, and have been set up for that volume from a printed copy, or (2) that as Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne seem to have offered to see the book through the press, they may 5 10 have had some hand in the revision, though there seems to be no doubt that Peacock is mainly responsible for the volume, or (3) that the variation of practice was an undiscovered freak of some odd hand in the printing office. I have not succeeded in tracing the poem in the mazes of contemporary periodical literature. 2 In the original edition raining, an obvious misprint for ruining, which was substituted in Mrs. Shelley's first edition of 1839. 3 In Mrs. Shelley's edition, sunk. 4 Mr. Rossetti gives these lines thus: as if heaven were ruining in, Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass. As if ocean had sunk from beneath them, they pass To their graves &c. He tells us that the punctuation is his own, but says nothing about having altered was to were in line 6, without authority. The reason given for the change of pointing is as follows: "I cannot see the sense of saying the waterspouts seemed to sustain heaven, as if ocean had sunk Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep 15 20 25 Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale, from beneath them :' but I do see the sense of saying that the waterspouts collapse as if ocean had sunk from beneath them." I can see no difficulty about the sense of the passage as given in Shelley's edition, namely that the eye was so occupied by the stupendous mass of the waterspouts as to receive the impression that they instead of ocean itself were the base on which the arch of heaven rested. 31 35 40 1 Another peculiarity of this poem is that the word tiger is spelt, throughout, tyger, though this orthography does not occur elsewhere in the Prometheus volume. I have given Shelley's usual orthography wherever the word occurs (namely in lines 72, 92, 137, 143, and 156), because I do not think there is sufficient evidence that the unusual spelling was his deliberate choice, or even his at all. 45 49 In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold; 1 So in Shelley's edition; but had in Mrs. Shelley's from 1839 onwards. 60 65 69 75 80 Is outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high, The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye; Whilst its mother's is lustreless. "Smile not, my child, "But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled "Of the pang that awaits us, whatever that be, "So dreadful since thou must divide it with me! "Dream, sleep! This pale bosom, thy cradle and bed, "Will it rock thee not, infant? "Tis beating with dread! "Alas! what is life, what is death, what are we, "That when the ship sinks we no longer may be? "What! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more? "To be after life what we have been before? "Not to touch those sweet hands? Not to look on those eyes,1 "Those lips, and that hair, all that smiling disguise "Thou yet wearest, sweet spirit, which I, day by day, "Have so long called my child, but which now fades away 'Like a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?" Lo! the ship Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip; The tigers leap up when they feel the slow brine Crawling inch by inch on them, hair, ears, limbs, and eyne, Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cry Bursts at once from their vitals tremendously, And 'tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain, Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. 1 There is a full stop at eyes in Shelley's edition: Mrs. Shelley right 85 91 95 100 105 ly substituted a comma in her first edition of 1839. Between ocean and heaven, like an ocean, past, And that breach in the tempest is widening away, 110 114 120 And the long glassy heave of the rocking sea, And over head glorious, but dreadful to see Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold 125 129 Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with heaven's azure smile,2 The wide world of waters is vibrating. Where Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay 1 In Shelley's edition clouds ;-in Mrs. Shelley's first edition of 1839, cloud, and so in all other editions known to me. 135 2 In Shelley's edition there is a fullstop at smile, removed in favour of a comma in Mrs. Shelley's first edition of 1839. |