Explore "The Revolt of Islam" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the last hope of trampled France had failed / Like a brief dream of unremaining glory, / From visions of despair I rose, and scaled / The peak of an aerial promontory, / Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary; / And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken / Each cloud, and every wave: -but transitory / The calm; for sudden, the firm earth was shaken, / As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken.
So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder / Burst in far peals along the waveless deep, / When, gathering fast, around, above, and under, / Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep, / Until their complicating lines did steep / The orient sun in shadow: -not a sound / Was heard; one horrible repose did keep / The forests and the floods, and all around / Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.