Explore "Victoria" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling; / One glimmering lamp was expiring and low; / Around, the dark tide of the tempest was swelling, / Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,- / They bodingly presaged destruction and woe.
'Twas then that I started! -the wild storm was howling, / Nought was seen, save the lightning, which danced in the sky; / Above me, the crash of the thunder was rolling, / And low, chilling murmurs, the blast wafted by.
My heart sank within me-unheeded the war / Of the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke; - / Unheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear- / This heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear; / But conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.
'Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding, / The ghost of the murdered Victoria strode; / In her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding, / She swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode.
I wildly then called on the tempest to bear me-'