On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast

The sunken daylight far through the aërial

waste.

XIII

They bore me to a cavern in the hill Beneath that column, and unbound me there;

And one did strip me stark; and one did fill

A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare A lighted torch, and four with friendless

care

Guided my steps the cavern-paths along; Then up a steep and dark and narrow

stair

We wound, until the torch's fiery tongue Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.

XIV

They raised me to the platform of the pile,

That column's dizzy height; the grate of brass,

Through which they thrust me, open stood the while,

As to its ponderous and suspended mass, With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!

With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound;

The grate, as they departed to repass, With horrid clangor fell, and the far sound

Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom was drowned.

XV

The noon was calm and bright: - around that column

The overhanging sky and circling sea, Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn,

The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not my own misery;
The islands and the mountains in the
day