Well may the sailor in his floating home
Expect a storm, for, lo! in heaven's high vault
Rise pyramids of ice, mountains of salt,
Turrets of snow, and palaces of foam.
POLONIA returns.
POLONIA. O dire misfortune!
KING. What so suddenly
Has chanced, Polonia?
POLONIA. This inconstant sea,
This Babel of wild waves that seeks heaven's gate,
So great its fury, and its rage so great,
Driven by a drought accursed,
(Who would have thought that waves themselves could thirst?)
Has swallowed in the depths of its dread womb,
But now, a numerous company, to whom
It consecrates below
Red sepulchres of coral, tombs of snow,
In silver-shining caves;
For from their prison out o'er all the waves
Has Aeolus the winds let loose, and they,
Without a law to guide them on their way,
Fell on that bark from which the trumpet rang,
A swan whose own sad obsequies it sang.
I from that cliff's stupendous height,
Which dares to intercept the great sun's light,
Looked full of hope along that vessel's track,
To see if it was Philip who came back;
Philip whose flag had borne upon the breeze
Thy royal arms triumphant through the seas;
When his sad wreck swept by,
And every sound was buried in a sigh,
His ruin seemed not wrought by seas or skies,
But by my lips and eyes,
Because my cries, the tears that made me blind,
Increased still more the water and the wind.
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