y intended. As the rising action continues, Shelley talks of the "Mediterranean" (31) and its "summer dreams" (30). In the dream, the reader finds the sea laying "Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay/ And saw in sleep old palaces and towers/ Quivering within the wave's intenser day" (32-34). Shelley implants the idea of a volcano with the word "pumice." The "old palaces and towers" stir vivid images of ancient Rome and Greece in the readers mind. Shelley also uses these images in the sea's dream to show that the natural world and the human social and political world are parallel. Again, he uses soft sounding words, but this time it is used to lull the reader into the same dream-like state of the Mediterranean. The "pumice" shows destruction and creation for when the volcano erupts it destroys. But it also creates more new land. The "pumice" is probably Shelley's best example of rebirth and rejuvenation. The word "Quivering" is not just used to describe the reflection of images in the water. It is also used to show a sense of fear which seems to be the most common mood and emotion in this poem. Is Shelley perhaps making a comment that at the root of people's faith is fear of vengeful god? Maybe, but the main focus of this poem is not just religion, but what religion stands for which is death and rebirth. Could line 34, also be a comment on Shelley himself? In the final stanzas, Shelley has the wind transforming from the natural world toward human suffering. Shelley pleads with the wind: "Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!" (54). He seeks transcendence from the wind and says: "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed" (55). Shelley shows Christ not as a religion, but as a hero of sacrifice and suffering, like the poet himself. He again pleads for the wind: "Drive my dead thought over the universe...to quicken a new birth!" (63-64). He asks the wind to "Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth/ Ashes an...
