V
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
· (no date)
Published 01/07/1880
Part of On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery
'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;
For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare
Kindled by that inextricable error,
Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air
Become aand ever-shifting mirror
Of all the beauty and the terror there—
A woman's countenance, with serpent-locks,
Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks.