and wildly threw
    His matted tresses over on his brow. 
    Another billow came, and even now
    Was dashing at his feet.  There was no shade
    Of terror, as the serpent waters play’d
    Before him, but his eye was calm as death. 
    Another, yet another! and the breath
    Of the weird wind was with it; like a rock
    Unriveted it fell—­a shroud of smoke
    Pass’d over—­there was heard, and died away,
    The voice of one, shrill shrieking, “Agathe!”

    The sea-bird sitteth lonely by the side
    Of the far waste of waters, flapping wide
    His wet and weary wings; but he is gone,
    The stricken Julio!—­a wave-swept stone
    Stands there, on which he sat, and nakedly
    It rises looking to the lonely sea;
    But Julio is gone, and Agathe! 
    The waters swept them madly to their core,—­
    The dead and living with a frantic roar! 
    And so he died, his bosom fondly set
    On her’s; and round her clay-cold waist were met
    His bare and wither’d arms, and to her brow
    His lips were press’d.  Both, both are perish’d now!

    He died upon her bosom in a swoon;
    And fancied of the pale and silver moon,
    That went before him in her hall of blue: 
    He died like golden insect in the dew,
    Calm, calm, and pure; and not a chord was rung
    In his deep heart, but love.  He perish’d young,
    But perish’d, wasted by some fatal flame
    That fed upon his vitals; and there came
    Lunacy sweeping lightly, like a stream,
    Along his brain—­He perish’d in a dream!

                      In sooth, I marvel not,
    If death be only a mysterious thought,
    That cometh on the heart, and turns the brow
    Brightless and chill, as Julio’s is now;
    For only had the wasting struggle been
    Of one wild feeling, till it rose within
    Into the form of death, and nature felt
    The light of the immortal being melt
    Into its happier home, beyond the sea,
    And moon, and stars, into eternity!

    The sun broke through his dungeon long enthrall’d
    By dismal cloud, and on the emerald
    Of the great living sea was blazing down,
    To gift the lordly billows with a crown
    Of diamond and silver.  From his cave
    The hermit came, and by the dying wave
    Lone wander’d, and he found upon the sand,
    Below a truss of sea-weed, with his hand
    Around the silent waist of Agathe,
    The corse of Julio!  Pale, pale, it lay
    Beside the wasted girl.  The fireless eye
    Was open, and a jewell’d rosary
    Hung round the neck; but it was gone,—­the cross
    That Agathe had given.