chapter 49
, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).
***
ON DEATH.
[For the date of composition see Editor’s Note. Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST.—Ecclesiastes.
The pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn’s undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. _5
O man! hold thee on in courage of soul Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, _10 Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know, This world is the mother of all we feel, And the coming of death is a fearful blow _15 To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel; When all that we know, or feel, or see, Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there, Where all but this frame must surely be, _20 Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear No longer will live to hear or to see All that is great and all that is strange In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? _25 Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? Who painteth the shadows that are beneath The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be With the fears and the love for that which we see? _30
***
A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD.
LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
[Composed September, 1815. Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray; And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, _5 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea; Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway, Responding to the charm with its own mystery. _10 The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, _15 Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height Gather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres: And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, _20 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, And mingling with the still night and mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild _25 And terrorless as this serenest night: Here could I hope, like some inquiring child Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. _30
***
TO —.
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816. See Editor’s Note.]
DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON ‘APOTMON.
Oh! there are spirits of the air, And genii of the evening breeze, And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair As star-beams among twilight trees:— Such lovely ministers to meet _5 Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs, And moonlight seas, that are the voice Of these inexplicable things, Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice _10 When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes Beams that were never meant for thine, Another’s wealth:—tame sacrifice To a fond faith! still dost thou pine? _15 Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope On the false earth’s inconstancy? _20 Did thine own mind afford no scope Of love, or moving thoughts to thee? That natural scenes or human smiles Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled _25 Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted; The glory of the moon is dead; Night’s ghosts and dreams have now departed; Thine own soul still is true to thee, But changed to a foul fiend through misery. _30
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever Beside thee like thy shadow hangs, Dream not to chase;—the mad endeavour Would scourge thee to severer pangs. Be as thou art. Thy settled fate, Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. _35
NOTES: _1 of 1816; in 1839. _8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.
***
TO WORDSWORTH.
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return: Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine _5 Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar: Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude: _10 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,— Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
***
FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer _5 A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre, For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept, Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust, And stifled thee, their minister. I know _10 Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
***
LINES.
[Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, where it is headed “November, 1815”. Reprinted in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. See Editor’s Note.]
1. The cold earth slept below, Above the cold sky shone; And all around, with a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow, The breath of night like death did flow _5 Beneath the sinking moon.
2. The wintry hedge was black, The green grass was not seen, The birds did rest on the bare thorn’s breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, _10 Had bound their folds o’er many a crack Which the frost had made between.
3. Thine eyes glowed in the glare Of the moon’s dying light; As a fen-fire’s beam on a sluggish stream _15 Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there, And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair, That shook in the wind of night.
4. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved— The wind made thy bosom chill— _20 The night did shed on thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky Might visit thee at will.
NOTE: _17 raven 1823; tangled 1824.
***
NOTE ON THE EARLY POEMS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The remainder of Shelley’s Poems will be arranged in the order in which they were written. Of course, mistakes will occur in placing some of the shorter ones; for, as I have said, many of these were thrown aside, and I never saw them till I had the misery of looking over his writings after the hand that traced them was dust; and some were in the hands of others, and I never saw them till now. The subjects of the poems are often to me an unerring guide; but on other occasions I can only guess, by finding them in the pages of the same manuscript book that contains poems with the date of whose composition I am fully conversant. In the present arrangement all his poetical translations will be placed together at the end.
The loss of his early papers prevents my being able to give any of the poetry of his boyhood. Of the few I give as “Early Poems”, the greater part were published with “Alastor”; some of them were written previously, some at the same period. The poem beginning ‘Oh, there are spirits in the air’ was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth. The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames in 1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to its source. He never spent a season more tranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe pulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near Windsor Forest; and his life was spent under its shades or on the water, meditating subjects for verse. Hitherto, he had chiefly aimed at extending his political doctrines, and attempted so to do by appeals in prose essays to the people, exhorting them to claim their rights; but he had now begun to feel that the time for action was not ripe in England, and that the pen was the only instrument wherewith to prepare the way for better things.
In the scanty journals kept during those years I find a record of the books that Shelley read during several years. During the years of 1814 and 1815 the list is extensive. It includes, in Greek, Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus, and Diogenes Laertius. In Latin, Petronius, Suetonius, some of the works of Cicero, a large proportion of those of Seneca and Livy. In English, Milton’s poems, Wordsworth’s “Excursion”, Southey’s “Madoc” and “Thalaba”, Locke “On the Human Understanding”, Bacon’s “Novum Organum”. In Italian, Ariosto, Tasso, and Alfieri. In French, the “Reveries d’un Solitaire” of Rousseau. To these may be added several modern books of travel. He read few novels.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816.
THE SUNSET.
[Written at Bishopsgate, 1816 (spring). Published in full in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Lines 9-20, and 28-42, appeared in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, under the titles, respectively, of “Sunset. From an Unpublished Poem”, And “Grief. A Fragment”.]
There late was One within whose subtle being, As light and wind within some delicate cloud That fades amid the blue noon’s burning sky, Genius and death contended. None may know The sweetness of the joy which made his breath _5 Fail, like the trances of the summer air, When, with the Lady of his love, who then First knew the unreserve of mingled being, He walked along the pathway of a field Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o’er, _10 But to the west was open to the sky. There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points Of the far level grass and nodding flowers And the old dandelion’s hoary beard, _15 And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay On the brown massy woods—and in the east The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, While the faint stars were gathering overhead.— _20 ‘Is it not strange, Isabel,’ said the youth, ‘I never saw the sun? We will walk here To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.’
That night the youth and lady mingled lay In love and sleep—but when the morning came _25 The lady found her lover dead and cold. Let none believe that God in mercy gave That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, But year by year lived on—in truth I think Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, _30 And that she did not die, but lived to tend Her aged father, were a kind of madness, If madness ’tis to be unlike the world. For but to see her were to read the tale Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts _35 Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;— Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan: Her eyelashes were worn away with tears, Her lips and cheeks were like things dead—so pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins _40 And weak articulations might be seen Day’s ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
‘Inheritor of more than earth can give, _45 Passionless calm and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!’ _50 This was the only moan she ever made.
NOTES: _4 death 1839; youth 1824. _22 sun? We will walk 1824; sunrise? We will wake cj. Forman. _37 Her eyes...wan Hunt, 1823; omitted 1824, 1839. _38 worn 1824; torn 1839.
***
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt’s “Examiner”, January 19, 1817, and with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819.]
1. The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us,—visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, _5 It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening,— Like clouds in starlight widely spread,— Like memory of music fled,— _10 Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2. Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone? _15 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, _20 Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,—why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
3. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever _25 To sage or poet these responses given— Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven. Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, _30 Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, _35 Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.
4. Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, _40 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes— Thou—that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! _45 Depart not as thy shadow came Depart not—lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.
5. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, _50 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; I was not heard—I saw them not— When musing deeply on the lot _55 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming,— Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! _60
6. I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine—have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers _65 Of studious zeal or love’s delight Outwatched with me the envious night— They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, _70 That thou—O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.
7. The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past—there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, _75 Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply _80 Its calm—to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.
NOTES: _2 among 1819; amongst 1817. _14 dost 1819; doth 1817. _21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript. _37-_48 omitted Boscombe manuscript. _44 art 1817; are 1819. _76 or 1819; nor 1839.
***
MONT BLANC.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the end of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour” published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett.]
1. The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings _5 Of waters,—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river _10 Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
2. Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine— Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, _15 Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, _20 Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear—an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep _25 Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity;— Thy caverns echoing to the Arve’s commotion, _30 A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound— Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange _35 To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; _40 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by _45 Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
3. Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber, _50 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.—I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep _55 Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, _60 Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene— Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread _65 And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone, And the wolf tracts her there—how hideously Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, _70 Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelope once this silent snow? None can reply—all seems eternal now. _75 The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with nature reconciled; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal _80 Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
4. The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell _85 Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower;—the bound _90 With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. _95 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And THIS, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep _100 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower _105 And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destined path, or in the mangled soil _110 Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; _115 Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest’s stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves _120 Shine in the rushing torrents’ restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
5. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high—the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them:—Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath _135 Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind’s imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?
July 23, 1816.
NOTES: _15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817; cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839. _20 Thy 1824; The 1839. _53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’). _56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839. _69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript. _79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript. _108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti (cf. lines 102, 106). _121 torrents’]torrent’s 1817, 1824, 1839.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC.
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
There is a voice, not understood by all, Sent from these desert-caves. It is the roar Of the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call, Plunging into the vale—it is the blast Descending on the pines—the torrents pour... _5
***
FRAGMENT: HOME.
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.
***
FRAGMENT OF A GHOST STORY.
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
A shovel of his ashes took From the hearth’s obscurest nook, Muttering mysteries as she went. Helen and Henry knew that Granny Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5 And so they followed hard— But Helen clung to her brother’s arm, And her own spasm made her shake.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1816, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled “The Sunset” was written in the spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopsgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” was conceived during his voyage round the lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the “Nouvelle Heloise” for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley’s own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful.
“Mont Blanc” was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, and Letters from Switzerland”: ‘The poem entitled “Mont Blanc” is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.’
This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the “Prometheus” of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch’s “Lives”, and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny’s “Letters”, the “Annals” and “Germany” of Tacitus. In French, the “History of the French Revolution” by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne’s “Essays”, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke’s “Essay”, “Political Justice”, and Coleridge’s “Lay Sermon”, form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, “Paradise Lost”, Spenser’s “Faery Queen”, and “Don Quixote”.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817.
MARIANNE’S DREAM.
[Composed at Marlow, 1817. Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, and reprinted in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. A pale Dream came to a Lady fair, And said, A boon, a boon, I pray! I know the secrets of the air, And things are lost in the glare of day, Which I can make the sleeping see, _5 If they will put their trust in me.
2. And thou shalt know of things unknown, If thou wilt let me rest between The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown Over thine eyes so dark and sheen: _10 And half in hope, and half in fright, The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
3. At first all deadly shapes were driven Tumultuously across her sleep, And o’er the vast cope of bending heaven _15 All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep; And the Lady ever looked to spy If the golden sun shone forth on high.
4. And as towards the east she turned, She saw aloft in the morning air, _20 Which now with hues of sunrise burned, A great black Anchor rising there; And wherever the Lady turned her eyes, It hung before her in the skies.
5. The sky was blue as the summer sea, _25 The depths were cloudless overhead, The air was calm as it could be, There was no sight or sound of dread, But that black Anchor floating still Over the piny eastern hill. _30
6. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear To see that Anchor ever hanging, And veiled her eyes; she then did hear The sound as of a dim low clanging, And looked abroad if she might know _35 Was it aught else, or but the flow Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
7. There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock, But the very weeds that blossomed there _40 Were moveless, and each mighty rock Stood on its basis steadfastly; The Anchor was seen no more on high.
8. But piled around, with summits hid In lines of cloud at intervals, _45 Stood many a mountain pyramid Among whose everlasting walls Two mighty cities shone, and ever Through the red mist their domes did quiver.
9. On two dread mountains, from whose crest, _50 Might seem, the eagle, for her brood, Would ne’er have hung her dizzy nest, Those tower-encircled cities stood. A vision strange such towers to see, Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously, _55 Where human art could never be.
10. And columns framed of marble white, And giant fanes, dome over dome Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright With workmanship, which could not come _60 From touch of mortal instrument, Shot o’er the vales, or lustre lent From its own shapes magnificent.
11. But still the Lady heard that clang Filling the wide air far away; _65 And still the mist whose light did hang Among the mountains shook alway, So that the Lady’s heart beat fast, As half in joy, and half aghast, On those high domes her look she cast. _70
12. Sudden, from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames that each with quivering tongue Licked its high domes, and overhead Among those mighty towers and fanes _75 Dropped fire, as a volcano rains Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.
13. And hark! a rush as if the deep Had burst its bonds; she looked behind And saw over the western steep _80 A raging flood descend, and wind Through that wide vale; she felt no fear, But said within herself, ’Tis clear These towers are Nature’s own, and she To save them has sent forth the sea. _85
14. And now those raging billows came Where that fair Lady sate, and she Was borne towards the showering flame By the wild waves heaped tumultuously. And, on a little plank, the flow _90 Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.
15. The flames were fiercely vomited From every tower and every dome, And dreary light did widely shed O’er that vast flood’s suspended foam, _95 Beneath the smoke which hung its night On the stained cope of heaven’s light.
16. The plank whereon that Lady sate Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Between the peaks so desolate _100 Of the drowning mountains, in and out, As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails— While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
17. At last her plank an eddy crossed, And bore her to the city’s wall, _105 Which now the flood had reached almost; It might the stoutest heart appal To hear the fire roar and hiss Through the domes of those mighty palaces.
18. The eddy whirled her round and round _110 Before a gorgeous gate, which stood Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound Its aery arch with light like blood; She looked on that gate of marble clear, With wonder that extinguished fear. _115
19. For it was filled with sculptures rarest, Of forms most beautiful and strange, Like nothing human, but the fairest Of winged shapes, whose legions range Throughout the sleep of those that are, _120 Like this same Lady, good and fair.
20. And as she looked, still lovelier grew Those marble forms;—the sculptor sure Was a strong spirit, and the hue Of his own mind did there endure _125 After the touch, whose power had braided Such grace, was in some sad change faded.
21. She looked, the flames were dim, the flood Grew tranquil as a woodland river Winding through hills in solitude; _130 Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their fair limbs to float in motion, Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
22. And their lips moved; one seemed to speak, When suddenly the mountains cracked, _135 And through the chasm the flood did break With an earth-uplifting cataract: The statues gave a joyous scream, And on its wings the pale thin Dream Lifted the Lady from the stream. _140
23. The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Waked the fair Lady from her sleep, And she arose, while from the veil Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep, And she walked about as one who knew _145 That sleep has sights as clear and true As any waking eyes can view.
NOTES: _18 golden 1819; gold 1824, 1839. _28 or 1824; nor 1839. _62 or]a cj. Rossetti. _63 its]their cj. Rossetti. _92 flames cj. Rossetti; waves 1819, 1824, 1839. _101 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839. _106 flood]flames cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’). _120 that 1819, 1824; who 1839. _135 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.
***
TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from which Mr. Locock [“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 60-62] has, with patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock’s restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley’s obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light of a final recension.]
1. Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; _5 Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet. Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
2. A breathless awe, like the swift change _10 Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven By the enchantment of thy strain, _15 And on my shoulders wings are woven, To follow its sublime career Beyond the mighty moons that wane Upon the verge of Nature’s utmost sphere, Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear. _20
3. Her voice is hovering o’er my soul—it lingers O’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings, The blood and life within those snowy fingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quick— _25 The blood is listening in my frame, And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes; My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, _30 I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
4. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song Flows on, and fills all things with melody.— Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, _35 On which, like one in trance upborne, Secure o’er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now ’tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, _40 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
STANZAS 1 AND 2.
As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.
1. Cease, cease—for such wild lessons madmen learn Thus to be lost, and thus to sink and die Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia turn In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie Even though the sounds its voice that were _5 Between [thy] lips are laid to sleep: Within thy breath, and on thy hair Like odour, it is [lingering] yet And from thy touch like fire doth leap— Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet— _10 Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.
2. [A deep and] breathless awe like the swift change Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers Wild sweet yet incommunicably strange Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers... _15
***
TO CONSTANTIA. [Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and printed by her in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. A copy exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]
1. The rose that drinks the fountain dew In the pleasant air of noon, Grows pale and blue with altered hue— In the gaze of the nightly moon; For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, _5 Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
2. Such is my heart—roses are fair, And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom; _10 And fed with love, like air and dew, Its growth—
NOTES: _1 The rose]The red Rose B. _2 pleasant]fragrant B. _6 her omitted B.
***
FRAGMENT: TO ONE SINGING.
[Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has revised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock (“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.]
My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing, Far far away into the regions dim
Of rapture—as a boat, with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river, _5 Speeds through dark forests o’er the waters swinging...
NOTES: _3 Far far away B.; Far away 1839. _6 Speeds...swinging B.; omitted 1839.
***
A FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC.
[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
Silver key of the fountain of tears, Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild; Softest grave of a thousand fears, Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child, Is laid asleep in flowers. _5
***
ANOTHER FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC.
[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
No, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love.’ Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self, Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.
***
‘MIGHTY EAGLE’.
SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN.
[Published in 1882 (“Poetical Works of P. B. S.”) by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]
Mighty eagle! thou that soarest O’er the misty mountain forest, And amid the light of morning Like a cloud of glory hiest, And when night descends defiest _5 The embattled tempests’ warning!
***
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
[Published in part (5-9, 14) by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition (without title); in full 2nd edition (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley’s hand are extant: two—Leigh Hunt’s and Ch. Cowden Clarke’s—described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry [“Poetical Works”, Centenary Edition, 3 193-6]. One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley’s autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley’s hand is in the Harvard manuscript book.]
1. Thy country’s curse is on thee, darkest crest Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm Which rends our Mother’s bosom—Priestly Pest! Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
2. Thy country’s curse is on thee! Justice sold, _5 Truth trampled, Nature’s landmarks overthrown, And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold, Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction’s throne.
3. And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands Watching the beck of Mutability _10 Delays to execute her high commands, And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,
4. Oh, let a father’s curse be on thy soul, And let a daughter’s hope be on thy tomb; Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl _15 To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.
5. I curse thee by a parent’s outraged love, By hopes long cherished and too lately lost, By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove, By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; _20
6. By those infantine smiles of happy light, Which were a fire within a stranger’s hearth, Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:
7. By those unpractised accents of young speech, _25 Which he who is a father thought to frame To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach— THOU strike the lyre of mind!—oh, grief and shame!
8. By all the happy see in children’s growth— That undeveloped flower of budding years— _30 Sweetness and sadness interwoven both, Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears-
9. By all the days, under an hireling’s care, Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,— O wretched ye if ever any were,— _35 Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
10. By the false cant which on their innocent lips Must hang like poison on an opening bloom, By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb— _40
11. By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror; By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt Of thine impostures, which must be their error— That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—
12. By thy complicity with lust and hate— _45 Thy thirst for tears—thy hunger after gold— The ready frauds which ever on thee wait— The servile arts in which thou hast grown old—
13. By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile— By all the arts and snares of thy black den, _50 And—for thou canst outweep the crocodile— By thy false tears—those millstones braining men—
14. By all the hate which checks a father’s love— By all the scorn which kills a father’s care— By those most impious hands which dared remove _55 Nature’s high bounds—by thee—and by despair—
15. Yes, the despair which bids a father groan, And cry, ‘My children are no longer mine— The blood within those veins may be mine own, But—Tyrant—their polluted souls are thine;— _60
16. I curse thee—though I hate thee not.—O slave! If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell Of which thou art a daemon, on thy grave This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!
NOTES: _9 Angel which aye cancelled by Shelley for Fate which ever Fa. _24 promise of a 1839, 2nd edition; promises of 1839, 1st edition. _27 lore]love Fa. _32 and saddest]the saddest Fa. _36 yet not fatherless! cancelled by Shelley for why not fatherless? Fa. _41-_44 By...built ‘crossed by Shelley and marked dele by Mrs. Shelley’ (Woodberry) Fa. _50 arts and snares 1839, 1st edition; snares and arts Harvard Coll. manuscript; snares and nets Fa.; acts and snares 1839, 2nd edition. _59 those]their Fa.
***
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley (1, 5, 6), “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; in full, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. A transcript is extant in Mrs. Shelley’s hand.]
1. The billows on the beach are leaping around it, The bark is weak and frail, The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Darkly strew the gale. Come with me, thou delightful child, Come with me, though the wave is wild, _5 And the winds are loose, we must not stay, Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.
2. They have taken thy brother and sister dear, They have made them unfit for thee; _10 They have withered the smile and dried the tear Which should have been sacred to me. To a blighting faith and a cause of crime They have bound them slaves in youthly prime, And they will curse my name and thee _15 Because we fearless are and free.
3. Come thou, beloved as thou art; Another sleepeth still Near thy sweet mother’s anxious heart, Which thou with joy shalt fill, _20 With fairest smiles of wonder thrown On that which is indeed our own, And which in distant lands will be The dearest playmate unto thee.
4. Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, _25 Or the priests of the evil faith; They stand on the brink of that raging river, Whose waves they have tainted with death. It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells, Around them it foams and rages and swells; _30 And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
5. Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child! The rocking of the boat thou fearest, And the cold spray and the clamour wild?— _35 There, sit between us two, thou dearest— Me and thy mother—well we know The storm at which thou tremblest so, With all its dark and hungry graves, Less cruel than the savage slaves _40 Who hunt us o’er these sheltering waves.
6. This hour will in thy memory Be a dream of days forgotten long. We soon shall dwell by the azure sea Of serene and golden Italy, Or Greece, the Mother of the free; _45 And I will teach thine infant tongue To call upon those heroes old In their own language, and will mould Thy growing spirit in the flame Of Grecian lore, that by such name _50 A patriot’s birthright thou mayst claim!
NOTES: _1 on the beach omitted 1839, 1st edition. _8 of the law 1839, 1st edition; of law 1839, 2nd edition. _14 prime transcript; time editions 1839. _16 fearless are editions 1839; are fearless transcript. _20 shalt transcript; wilt editions 1839. _25-_32 Fear...eternity omitted, transcript. See “Rosalind and Helen”, lines 894-901. _33 and transcript; omitted editions 1839. _41 us transcript, 1839, 1st edition; thee 1839, 2nd edition. _42 will in transcript, 1839, 2nd edition; will sometime in 1839, 1st edition. _43 long transcript; omitted editions 1839. _48 those transcript, 1839, 1st edition; their 1839, 2nd edition.
***
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published in Dr. Garnett’s “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
1. The world is now our dwelling-place; Where’er the earth one fading trace Of what was great and free does keep, That is our home!... Mild thoughts of man’s ungentle race _5 Shall our contented exile reap; For who that in some happy place His own free thoughts can freely chase By woods and waves can clothe his face In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. _10
2. This lament, The memory of thy grievous wrong Will fade... But genius is omnipotent To hallow... _15
***
ON FANNY GODWIN.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Her voice did quiver as we parted, Yet knew I not that heart was broken From which it came, and I departed Heeding not the words then spoken. Misery—O Misery, _5 This world is all too wide for thee.
***
LINES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date ‘November 5th, 1817,’ in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. That time is dead for ever, child! Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! We look on the past And stare aghast At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, _5 Of hopes which thou and I beguiled To death on life’s dark river.
2. The stream we gazed on then rolled by; Its waves are unreturning; But we yet stand _10 In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee In the light of life’s dim morning.
***
DEATH.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. They die—the dead return not—Misery Sits near an open grave and calls them over, A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye— They are the names of kindred, friend and lover, Which he so feebly calls—they all are gone— _5 Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain— These tombs—alone remain.
2. Misery, my sweetest friend—oh, weep no more! Thou wilt not be consoled—I wonder not! _10 For I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s door Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot Was even as bright and calm, but transitory, And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary; This most familiar scene, my pain— _15 These tombs—alone remain.
NOTE: _5 calls editions 1839; called 1824.
***
OTHO.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
1. Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be, Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim From Brutus his own glory—and on thee Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame: Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail _5 Amid his cowering senate with thy name, Though thou and he were great—it will avail To thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.
2. ‘Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel, Abjure such envious fame—great Otho died _10 Like thee—he sanctified his country’s steel, At once the tyrant and tyrannicide, In his own blood—a deed it was to bring Tears from all men—though full of gentle pride, Such pride as from impetuous love may spring, _15 That will not be refused its offering.
NOTE: _13 bring cj. Garnett; buy 1839, 1st edition; wring cj. Rossetti.
***
FRAGMENTS SUPPOSED TO BE PARTS OF OTHO.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862,—where, however, only the fragment numbered 2 is assigned to “Otho”. Forman (1876) connects all three fragments with that projected poem.]
1. Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil, Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind, Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur _5 Chastened by deathful victory now, and find Foundations in this foulest age, and stir Me whom they cheer to be their minister.
2. Dark is the realm of grief: but human things Those may not know who cannot weep for them. _10
...
3. Once more descend The shadows of my soul upon mankind, For to those hearts with which they never blend, Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, _15 Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
...
***
‘O THAT A CHARIOT OF CLOUD WERE MINE’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
O that a chariot of cloud were mine! Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air, When the moon over the ocean’s line Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair. O that a chariot of cloud were mine! _5 I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind To the mountain peak and the rocky lake, And the...
***
FRAGMENT: TO A FRIEND RELEASED FROM PRISON.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast With feelings which make rapture pain resemble, Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast, I thank thee—let the tyrant keep _5 His chains and tears, yea, let him weep With rage to see thee freshly risen, Like strength from slumber, from the prison, In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. _10
NOTE: For the metre see Fragment: “A Gentle Story” (A.C. Bradley.)
***
FRAGMENT: SATAN BROKEN LOOSE.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
A golden-winged Angel stood Before the Eternal Judgement-seat: His looks were wild, and Devils’ blood Stained his dainty hands and feet. The Father and the Son _5 Knew that strife was now begun. They knew that Satan had broken his chain, And with millions of daemons in his train, Was ranging over the world again. Before the Angel had told his tale, _10 A sweet and a creeping sound Like the rushing of wings was heard around; And suddenly the lamps grew pale— The lamps, before the Archangels seven, That burn continually in Heaven. _15
***
FRAGMENT: “IGNICULUS DESIDERII”.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63.]
To thirst and find no fill—to wail and wander With short unsteady steps—to pause and ponder— To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle; To nurse the image of unfelt caresses _5 Till dim imagination just possesses The half-created shadow, then all the night Sick...
NOTES: _2 unsteady B.; uneasy 1839, 1st edition. _7, _8 then...Sick B.; wanting, 1839, 1st edition.
***
FRAGMENT: “AMOR AETERNUS”.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Wealth and dominion fade into the mass Of the great sea of human right and wrong, When once from our possession they must pass; But love, though misdirected, is among The things which are immortal, and surpass _5 All that frail stuff which will be—or which was.
***
FRAGMENT: THOUGHTS COME AND GO IN SOLITUDE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
My thoughts arise and fade in solitude, The verse that would invest them melts away Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day: How beautiful they were, how firm they stood, Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl! _5
***
A HATE-SONG.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
A hater he came and sat by a ditch, And he took an old cracked lute; And he sang a song which was more of a screech ’Gainst a woman that was a brute.
***
LINES TO A CRITIC.
[Published by Hunt in “The Liberal”, No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]
1. Honey from silkworms who can gather, Or silk from the yellow bee? The grass may grow in winter weather As soon as hate in me.
2. Hate men who cant, and men who pray, _5 And men who rail like thee; An equal passion to repay They are not coy like me.
3. Or seek some slave of power and gold To be thy dear heart’s mate; _10 Thy love will move that bigot cold Sooner than me, thy hate.
4. A passion like the one I prove Cannot divided be; I hate thy want of truth and love— _15 How should I then hate thee?
***
OZYMANDIAS.
[Published by Hunt in “The Examiner”, January, 1818. Reprinted with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, _5 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: _10 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
NOTE: _9 these words appear]this legend clear B.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The “Revolt of Islam”, written and printed, was a great effort—“Rosalind and Helen” was begun—and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.
In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.
He projected also translating the “Hymns” of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already published in the “Posthumous Poems”. His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the “Hymns” of Homer and the “Iliad”, he read the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the “Symposium” of Plato, and Arrian’s “Historia Indica”. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings I find also mentioned the “Faerie Queen”; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore and Byron.
His life was now spent more in thought than action—he had lost the eager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the benefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was far from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy or politics or taste were the subjects of conversation. He was playful; and indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others—not in bitterness, but in sport. The author of “Nightmare Abbey” seized on some points of his character and some habits of his life when he painted Scythrop. He was not addicted to ‘port or madeira,’ but in youth he had read of ‘Illuminati and Eleutherarchs,’ and believed that he possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of men and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and adversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did with physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats, and watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness—or repeating with wild energy “The Ancient Mariner”, and Southey’s “Old Woman of Berkeley”; but those who do will recollect that it was in such, and in the creations of his own fancy when that was most daring and ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and disappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life.
No words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were torn from him. In his first resentment against the Chancellor, on the passing of the decree, he had written a curse, in which there breathes, besides haughty indignation, all the tenderness of a father’s love, which could imagine and fondly dwell upon its loss and the consequences.
At one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had said some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be permitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared that our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to resolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything, and to escape with his child; and I find some unfinished stanzas addressed to this son, whom afterwards we lost at Rome, written under the idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to preserve him. This poem, as well as the one previously quoted, were not written to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the spontaneous outbursts of a man who brooded over his wrongs and woes, and was impelled to shed the grace of his genius over the uncontrollable emotions of his heart. I ought to observe that the fourth verse of this effusion is introduced in “Rosalind and Helen”. When afterwards this child died at Rome, he wrote, a propos of the English burying-ground in that city: ‘This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent’s heart are now prophetic; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body, the other crushes the affections.’
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818.
TO THE NILE.
[‘Found by Mr. Townshend Meyer among the papers of Leigh Hunt, [and] published in the “St. James’s Magazine” for March, 1876.’ (Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B.; “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Library Edition, 1876, volume 3 page 410.) First included among Shelley’s poetical works in Mr. Forman’s Library Edition, where a facsimile of the manuscript is given. Composed February 4, 1818. See “Complete Works of John Keats”, edition H. Buxton Forman, Glasgow, 1901, volume 4 page 76.]
Month after month the gathered rains descend Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells, And from the desert’s ice-girt pinnacles Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. _5 Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells By Nile’s aereal urn, with rapid spells Urging those waters to their mighty end. O’er Egypt’s land of Memory floods are level And they are thine, O Nile—and well thou knowest _10 That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil And fruits and poisons spring where’er thou flowest. Beware, O Man—for knowledge must to thee, Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
***
PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES.
[Composed May 4, 1818. Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, which supplies the last word of the fragment.]
Listen, listen, Mary mine, To the whisper of the Apennine, It bursts on the roof like the thunder’s roar, Or like the sea on a northern shore, Heard in its raging ebb and flow _5 By the captives pent in the cave below. The Apennine in the light of day Is a mighty mountain dim and gray, Which between the earth and sky doth lay; But when night comes, a chaos dread _10 On the dim starlight then is spread, And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm, Shrouding...
***
THE PAST.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. Wilt thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love’s sweet bowers, Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, _5 And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.
2. Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, Memories that make the heart a tomb, Regrets which glide through the spirit’s gloom, _10 And with ghastly whispers tell That joy, once lost, is pain.
***
TO MARY —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
O Mary dear, that you were here With your brown eyes bright and clear. And your sweet voice, like a bird Singing love to its lone mate In the ivy bower disconsolate; _5 Voice the sweetest ever heard! And your brow more... Than the ... sky Of this azure Italy. Mary dear, come to me soon, _10 I am not well whilst thou art far; As sunset to the sphered moon, As twilight to the western star, Thou, beloved, art to me.
O Mary dear, that you were here; _15 The Castle echo whispers ‘Here!’
***
ON A FADED VIOLET.
[Published by Hunt, “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1821. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Again reprinted, with several variants, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1821. A transcript is extant in a letter from Shelley to Sophia Stacey, dated March 7, 1820.]
1. The odour from the flower is gone Which like thy kisses breathed on me; The colour from the flower is flown Which glowed of thee and only thee!
2. A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, _5 It lies on my abandoned breast, And mocks the heart which yet is warm, With cold and silent rest.
3. I weep,—my tears revive it not! I sigh,—it breathes no more on me; _10 Its mute and uncomplaining lot Is such as mine should be.
NOTES: _1 odour]colour 1839. _2 kisses breathed]sweet eyes smiled 1839. _3 colour]odour 1839. _4 glowed]breathed 1839. _5 shrivelled]withered 1839. _8 cold and silent all editions; its cold, silent Stacey manuscript.
***
LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.
OCTOBER, 1818.
[Composed at Este, October, 1818. Published with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. Amongst the late Mr. Fredk. Locker-Lampson’s collections at Rowfant there is a manuscript of the lines (167-205) on Byron, interpolated after the completion of the poem.]
Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on— Day and night, and night and day, _5 Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel’s track: Whilst above the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily, _10 And behind the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o’er-brimming deep; _15 And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore _20 Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O’er the unreposing wave _25 To the haven of the grave. What, if there no friends will greet; What, if there no heart will meet His with love’s impatient beat; Wander wheresoe’er he may, _30 Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress? Then ‘twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no: _35 Senseless is the breast, and cold, Which relenting love would fold; Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill; Every little living nerve _40 That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortured lips and brow, Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December’s bough.
On the beach of a northern sea _45 Which tempests shake eternally, As once the wretch there lay to sleep, Lies a solitary heap, One white skull and seven dry bones, On the margin of the stones, _50 Where a few gray rushes stand, Boundaries of the sea and land: Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews, as they sail O’er the billows of the gale; _55 Or the whirlwind up and down Howling, like a slaughtered town, When a king in glory rides Through the pomp of fratricides: Those unburied bones around _60 There is many a mournful sound; There is no lament for him, Like a sunless vapour, dim, Who once clothed with life and thought What now moves nor murmurs not. _65
Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide Agony: To such a one this morn was led, My bark by soft winds piloted: ‘Mid the mountains Euganean _70 I stood listening to the paean With which the legioned rooks did hail The sun’s uprise majestical; Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar _75 Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, Flecked with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky, So their plumes of purple grain, _80 Starred with drops of golden rain, Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes On the morning’s fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail, _85 And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow, down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright, and clear, and still, Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea _90 The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath Day’s azure eyes Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies, _95 A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite’s destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, _100 Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, _105 Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; _110 As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City, thou hast been _115 Ocean’s child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier. _120 A less drear ruin then than now, With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne, among the waves Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew _125 Flies, as once before it flew, O’er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace gate _130 With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of Ocean’s own, Topples o’er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way, Wandering at the close of day, _135 Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o’er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death _140 O’er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold Quivering through aereal gold, As I now behold them here, Would imagine not they were _145 Sepulchres, where human forms, Like pollution-nourished worms, To the corpse of greatness cling, Murdered, and now mouldering: But if Freedom should awake _150 In her omnipotence, and shake From the Celtic Anarch’s hold All the keys of dungeons cold, Where a hundred cities lie Chained like thee, ingloriously, _155 Thou and all thy sister band Might adorn this sunny land, Twining memories of old time With new virtues more sublime; If not, perish thou and they!— _160 Clouds which stain truth’s rising day By her sun consumed away— Earth can spare ye: while like flowers, In the waste of years and hours, From your dust new nations spring _165 With more kindly blossoming.
Perish—let there only be Floating o’er thy hearthless sea As the garment of thy sky Clothes the world immortally, _170 One remembrance, more sublime Than the tattered pall of time, Which scarce hides thy visage wan;— That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, _175 Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee; and Ocean Welcomed him with such emotion That its joy grew his, and sprung _180 From his lips like music flung O’er a mighty thunder-fit, Chastening terror:—what though yet Poesy’s unfailing River, Which through Albion winds forever _185 Lashing with melodious wave Many a sacred Poet’s grave, Mourn its latest nursling fled? What though thou with all thy dead Scarce can for this fame repay _190 Aught thine own? oh, rather say Though thy sins and slaveries foul Overcloud a sunlike soul? As the ghost of Homer clings Round Scamander’s wasting springs; _195 As divinest Shakespeare’s might Fills Avon and the world with light Like omniscient power which he Imaged ‘mid mortality; As the love from Petrarch’s urn, _200 Yet amid yon hills doth burn, A quenchless lamp by which the heart Sees things unearthly;—so thou art, Mighty spirit—so shall be The City that did refuge thee. _205
Lo, the sun floats up the sky Like thought-winged Liberty, Till the universal light Seems to level plain and height; From the sea a mist has spread, _210 And the beams of morn lie dead On the towers of Venice now, Like its glory long ago. By the skirts of that gray cloud Many-domed Padua proud _215 Stands, a peopled solitude, ‘Mid the harvest-shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow _220 With the purple vintage strain, Heaped upon the creaking wain, That the brutal Celt may swill Drunken sleep with savage will; And the sickle to the sword _225 Lies unchanged, though many a lord, Like a weed whose shade is poison, Overgrows this region’s foison, Sheaves of whom are ripe to come To destruction’s harvest-home: _230 Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow, Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe That love or reason cannot change The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge. _235
Padua, thou within whose walls Those mute guests at festivals, Son and Mother, Death and Sin, Played at dice for Ezzelin, Till Death cried, “I win, I win!” _240 And Sin cursed to lose the wager, But Death promised, to assuage her, That he would petition for Her to be made Vice-Emperor, When the destined years were o’er, _245 Over all between the Po And the eastern Alpine snow, Under the mighty Austrian. Sin smiled so as Sin only can, And since that time, ay, long before, _250 Both have ruled from shore to shore,— That incestuous pair, who follow Tyrants as the sun the swallow, As Repentance follows Crime, And as changes follow Time. _255
In thine halls the lamp of learning, Padua, now no more is burning; Like a meteor, whose wild way Is lost over the grave of day, It gleams betrayed and to betray: _260 Once remotest nations came To adore that sacred flame, When it lit not many a hearth On this cold and gloomy earth: Now new fires from antique light _265 Spring beneath the wide world’s might; But their spark lies dead in thee, Trampled out by Tyranny. As the Norway woodman quells, In the depth of piny dells, _270 One light flame among the brakes, While the boundless forest shakes, And its mighty trunks are torn By the fire thus lowly born: The spark beneath his feet is dead, _275 He starts to see the flames it fed Howling through the darkened sky With a myriad tongues victoriously, And sinks down in fear: so thou, O Tyranny, beholdest now _280 Light around thee, and thou hearest The loud flames ascend, and fearest: Grovel on the earth; ay, hide In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now: _285 ’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved star Mingling light and fragrance, far _290 From the curved horizon’s bound To the point of Heaven’s profound, Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie Underneath, the leaves unsodden _295 Where the infant Frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright print is gleaming yet; And the red and golden vines, Piercing with their trellised lines _300 The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line _305 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; _310 And my spirit which so long Darkened this swift stream of song,— Interpenetrated lie By the glory of the sky: Be it love, light, harmony, _315 Odour, or the soul of all Which from Heaven like dew doth fall, Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon _320 Autumn’s evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister Half the crimson light she brings _325 From the sunset’s radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like winged winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies Mid remembered agonies, _330 The frail bark of this lone being) Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be _335 In the sea of Life and Agony: Other spirits float and flee O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folded wings they waiting sit _340 For my bark, to pilot it To some calm and blooming cove, Where for me, and those I love, May a windless bower be built, Far from passion, pain, and guilt, _345 In a dell mid lawny hills, Which the wild sea-murmur fills, And soft sunshine, and the sound Of old forests echoing round, And the light and smell divine _350 Of all flowers that breathe and shine: We may live so happy there, That the Spirits of the Air, Envying us, may even entice To our healing Paradise _355 The polluting multitude; But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm On the uplifted soul, and leaves _360 Under which the bright sea heaves; While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies With its own deep melodies; _365 And the love which heals all strife Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood, They, not it, would change; and soon _370 Every sprite beneath the moon Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.
NOTES: _54 seamews 1819; seamew’s Rossetti. _115 Sun-girt]Sea-girt cj. Palgrave. _165 From your dust new 1819; From thy dust shall Rowfant manuscript (heading of lines 167-205). _175 songs 1819; sons cj. Forman. _278 a 1819; wanting, 1839.
***
SCENE FROM ‘TASSO’.
[Composed, 1818. Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
MADDALO, A COURTIER. MALPIGLIO, A POET. PIGNA, A MINISTER. ALBANO, AN USHER.
MADDALO: No access to the Duke! You have not said That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?
PIGNA: Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna Waits with state papers for his signature?
MALPIGLIO: The Lady Leonora cannot know _5 That I have written a sonnet to her fame, In which I ... Venus and Adonis. You should not take my gold and serve me not.
ALBANO: In truth I told her, and she smiled and said, ‘If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy, _10 Art the Adonis whom I love, and he The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.’ O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio, Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.
MALPIGLIO: The words are twisted in some double sense _15 That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.
PIGNA: How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?
ALBANO: Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning, His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed. The Princess sate within the window-seat, _20 And so her face was hid; but on her knee Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow, And quivering—young Tasso, too, was there.
MADDALO: Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven Thou drawest down smiles—they did not rain on thee. _25
MALPIGLIO: Would they were parching lightnings for his sake On whom they fell!
***
SONG FOR ‘TASSO’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. I loved—alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, _5 Of all that men had thought before. And all that Nature shows, and more.
2. And still I love and still I think, But strangely, for my heart can drink The dregs of such despair, and live, _10 And love;... And if I think, my thoughts come fast, I mix the present with the past, And each seems uglier than the last.
3. Sometimes I see before me flee _15 A silver spirit’s form, like thee, O Leonora, and I sit ...still watching it, Till by the grated casement’s ledge It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge _20 Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.
***
INVOCATION TO MISERY.
[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, September 8, 1832. Reprinted (as “Misery, a Fragment”) by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of 1839. A pencil copy of this poem is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 38. The readings of this copy are indicated by the letter B. in the footnotes.]
1. Come, be happy!—sit near me, Shadow-vested Misery: Coy, unwilling, silent bride, Mourning in thy robe of pride, Desolation—deified! _5
2. Come, be happy!—sit near me: Sad as I may seem to thee, I am happier far than thou, Lady, whose imperial brow Is endiademed with woe. _10
3. Misery! we have known each other, Like a sister and a brother Living in the same lone home, Many years—we must live some Hours or ages yet to come. _15
4. ’Tis an evil lot, and yet Let us make the best of it; If love can live when pleasure dies, We two will love, till in our eyes This heart’s Hell seem Paradise. _20
5. Come, be happy!—lie thee down On the fresh grass newly mown, Where the Grasshopper doth sing Merrily—one joyous thing In a world of sorrowing! _25
6. There our tent shall be the willow, And mine arm shall be thy pillow; Sounds and odours, sorrowful Because they once were sweet, shall lull Us to slumber, deep and dull. _30
7. Ha! thy frozen pulses flutter With a love thou darest not utter. Thou art murmuring—thou art weeping— Is thine icy bosom leaping While my burning heart lies sleeping? _35
8. Kiss me;—oh! thy lips are cold: Round my neck thine arms enfold— They are soft, but chill and dead; And thy tears upon my head Burn like points of frozen lead. _40
9. Hasten to the bridal bed— Underneath the grave ’tis spread: In darkness may our love be hid, Oblivion be our coverlid— We may rest, and none forbid. _45
10. Clasp me till our hearts be grown Like two shadows into one; Till this dreadful transport may Like a vapour fade away, In the sleep that lasts alway. _50
11. We may dream, in that long sleep, That we are not those who weep; E’en as Pleasure dreams of thee, Life-deserting Misery, Thou mayst dream of her with me. _55
12. Let us laugh, and make our mirth, At the shadows of the earth, As dogs bay the moonlight clouds, Which, like spectres wrapped in shrouds, Pass o’er night in multitudes. _60
13. All the wide world, beside us, Show like multitudinous Puppets passing from a scene; What but mockery can they mean, Where I am—where thou hast been? _65
NOTES: _1 near B., 1839; by 1832. _8 happier far]merrier yet B. _15 Hours or]Years and 1832. _17 best]most 1832. _19 We two will]We will 1832. _27 mine arm shall be thy B., 1839; thine arm shall be my 1832. _33 represented by asterisks, 1832. _34, _35 Thou art murmuring, thou art weeping, Whilst my burning bosom’s leaping 1832; Was thine icy bosom leaping While my burning heart was sleeping B. _40 frozen 1832, 1839, B.; molten cj. Forman. _44 be]is B. _47 shadows]lovers 1832, B. _59 which B., 1839; that 1832. _62 Show]Are 1832, B. _63 Puppets passing]Shadows shifting 1832; Shadows passing B. _64, _65 So B.: What but mockery may they mean? Where am I?—Where thou hast been 1832.
***
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated ‘December, 1818.’ A draft of stanza 1 is amongst the Boscombe manuscripts. (Garnett).]
1. The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon’s transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, _5 Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City’s voice itself, is soft like Solitude’s.
2. I see the Deep’s untrampled floor _10 With green and purple seaweeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone,— The lightning of the noontide ocean _15 Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
3. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, _20 Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— _25 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
4. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, _30 And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea _35 Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
5. Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; _40 They might lament—for I am one Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. _45
NOTES: _4 might Boscombe manuscript, Medwin 1847; light 1824, 1839. _5 The...light Boscombe manuscript, 1839, Medwin 1847; omitted, 1824. moist earth Boscombe manuscript; moist air 1839; west wind Medwin 1847. _17 measured 1824; mingled 1847. _18 did any heart now 1824; if any heart could Medwin 1847. _31 the 1824; this Medwin 1847. _36 dying 1824; outworn Medwin 1847.
***
THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
[Published in part (1-67) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; the remainder (68-70) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;— _5 And as a vale is watered by a flood,
Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie
Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, _10 The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale _15
Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness
Of the circumfluous waters,—every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, _20 And every wind of the mute atmosphere,
And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave
Which is its cradle—ever from below _25 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow
Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, _30
Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish!—and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night
Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, _35 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm
Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love In every soul but one.
...
And so this man returned with axe and saw _40 At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature’s gentle law
Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene _45
With jagged leaves,—and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep—or weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops
Into their mother’s bosom, sweet and soft, Nature’s pure tears which have no bitterness;— _50 Around the cradles of the birds aloft
They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss,
Make a green space among the silent bowers, _55 Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers
All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion—and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, _60
Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,
Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain _65 One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again.
...
The world is full of Woodmen who expel Love’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, And vex the nightingales in every dell. _70
NOTE: _8 —or as a tuberose cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
MARENGHI. (This fragment refers to an event told in Sismondi’s “Histoire des Republiques Italiennes”, which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province.—[MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1824.])
[Published in part (stanzas 7-15.) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; stanzas 1-28 by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. The Boscombe manuscript—evidently a first draft—from which (through Dr. Garnett) Rossetti derived the text of 1870 is now at the Bodleian, and has recently been collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, to whom the enlarged and amended text here printed is owing. The substitution, in title and text, of “Marenghi” for “Mazenghi” (1824) is due to Rossetti. Here as elsewhere in the footnotes B. = the Bodleian manuscript.]
1. Let those who pine in pride or in revenge, Or think that ill for ill should be repaid, Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade, Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn _5 Such bitter faith beside Marenghi’s urn.
2. A massy tower yet overhangs the town, A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...
...
3. Another scene are wise Etruria knew Its second ruin through internal strife _10 And tyrants through the breach of discord threw The chain which binds and kills. As death to life, As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom’s foison.
4. In Pisa’s church a cup of sculptured gold _15 Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn: A Sacrament more holy ne’er of old Etrurians mingled mid the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests, when...
5. And reconciling factions wet their lips _20 With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit Undarkened by their country’s last eclipse...
...
6. Was Florence the liberticide? that band Of free and glorious brothers who had planted, Like a green isle mid Aethiopian sand, _25 A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted Of many impious faiths—wise, just—do they, Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants’ prey?
7. O foster-nurse of man’s abandoned glory, Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour; _30 Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender:— The light-invested angel Poesy Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.
8. And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught _35 By loftiest meditations; marble knew The sculptor’s fearless soul—and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom grew. And more than all, heroic, just, sublime, Thou wart among the false...was this thy crime? _40
9. Yes; and on Pisa’s marble walls the twine Of direst weeds hangs garlanded—the snake Inhabits its wrecked palaces;—in thine A beast of subtler venom now doth make Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown, _45 And thus thy victim’s fate is as thine own.
10. The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare, And love and freedom blossom but to wither; And good and ill like vines entangled are, So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;— _50 Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi’s sake.
10a. [Albert] Marenghi was a Florentine; If he had wealth, or children, or a wife Or friends, [or farm] or cherished thoughts which twine _55 The sights and sounds of home with life’s own life Of these he was despoiled and Florence sent...
...
11. No record of his crime remains in story, But if the morning bright as evening shone, _60 It was some high and holy deed, by glory Pursued into forgetfulness, which won From the blind crowd he made secure and free The patriot’s meed, toil, death, and infamy.
12. For when by sound of trumpet was declared A price upon his life, and there was set _65 A penalty of blood on all who shared So much of water with him as might wet His lips, which speech divided not—he went Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.
13. Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast, He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, _70 Month after month endured; it was a feast Whene’er he found those globes of deep-red gold Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear, Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. _75
14. And in the roofless huts of vast morasses, Deserted by the fever-stricken serf, All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf, And where the huge and speckled aloe made, _80 Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,—
15. He housed himself. There is a point of strand Near Vado’s tower and town; and on one side The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, _85 And on the other, creeps eternally, Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea.
16. Here the earth’s breath is pestilence, and few But things whose nature is at war with life— Snakes and ill worms—endure its mortal dew. The trophies of the clime’s victorious strife— _90 And ringed horns which the buffalo did wear, And the wolf’s dark gray scalp who tracked him there.
17. And at the utmost point...stood there The relics of a reed-inwoven cot, _95 Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was hot When he was cold. The birds that were his grave Fell dead after their feast in Vado’s wave.
18. There must have burned within Marenghi’s breast _100 That fire, more warm and bright than life and hope, (Which to the martyr makes his dungeon... More joyous than free heaven’s majestic cope To his oppressor), warring with decay,— Or he could ne’er have lived years, day by day. _105
19. Nor was his state so lone as you might think. He had tamed every newt and snake and toad, And every seagull which sailed down to drink Those freshes ere the death-mist went abroad. And each one, with peculiar talk and play, _110 Wiled, not untaught, his silent time away.
20. And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at night Came licking with blue tongues his veined feet; And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, In many entangled figures quaint and sweet _115 To some enchanted music they would dance— Until they vanished at the first moon-glance.
21. He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed The summer dew-globes in the golden dawn; And, ere the hoar-frost languished, he could read _120 Its pictured path, as on bare spots of lawn Its delicate brief touch in silver weaves The likeness of the wood’s remembered leaves.
22. And many a fresh Spring morn would he awaken— While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron _125 Quivering in crimson fire, the peaks unshaken Of mountains and blue isles which did environ With air-clad crags that plain of land and sea,— And feel ... liberty.
23. And in the moonless nights when the dun ocean _130 Heaved underneath wide heaven, star-impearled, Starting from dreams... Communed with the immeasurable world; And felt his life beyond his limbs dilated, Till his mind grew like that it contemplated. _135
24. His food was the wild fig and strawberry; The milky pine-nuts which the autumn-blast Shakes into the tall grass; or such small fry As from the sea by winter-storms are cast; And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found _140 Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground.
25. And so were kindled powers and thoughts which made His solitude less dark. When memory came (For years gone by leave each a deepening shade), His spirit basked in its internal flame,— _145 As, when the black storm hurries round at night, The fisher basks beside his red firelight.
26. Yet human hopes and cares and faiths and errors, Like billows unawakened by the wind, Slept in Marenghi still; but that all terrors, _150 Weakness, and doubt, had withered in his mind. His couch...
...
27. And, when he saw beneath the sunset’s planet A black ship walk over the crimson ocean,— Its pennon streaming on the blasts that fan it, _155 Its sails and ropes all tense and without motion, Like the dark ghost of the unburied even Striding athwart the orange-coloured heaven,—
28. The thought of his own kind who made the soul Which sped that winged shape through night and day,— _160 The thought of his own country...
...
NOTES: _3 Who B.; Or 1870. _6 Marenghi’s 1870; Mazenghi’s B. _7 town 1870; sea B. _8 ruined 1870; squalid B. (‘the whole line is cancelled,’ Locock). _11 threw 1870; cancelled, B. _17 A Sacrament more B.; At Sacrament: more 1870. _18 mid B.; with 1870. _19 forests when... B.; forests. 1870. _23, _24 that band Of free and glorious brothers who had 1870; omitted, B. _25 a 1870; one B. _27 wise, just—do they 1870; omitted, B. _28 Does 1870; Doth B. prey 1870; spoil B. _33 angel 1824; Herald [?] B. _34 to welcome thee 1824; cancelled for... by thee B. _42 direst 1824; Desert B. _45 sits amid 1824 amid cancelled for soils (?) B. _53-_57 Albert...sent B.; omitted 1824, 1870. Albert cancelled B.: Pietro is the correct name. _53 Marenghi]Mazenghi B. _55 farm doubtful: perh. fame (Locock). _62 he 1824; thus B. _70 Amid the mountains 1824; Mid desert mountains [?] B. _71 toil, and cold]cold and toil editions 1824, 1839. _92, _93 And... there B. (see Editor’s Note); White bones, and locks of dun and yellow hair, And ringed horns which buffaloes did wear— 1870. _94 at the utmost point 1870; cancelled for when (where?) B. _95 reed B.; weed 1870. _99 after B.; upon 1870. _100 burned within Marenghi’s breast B.; lived within Marenghi’s heart 1870. _101 and B.; or 1870. _103 free B.; the 1870. _109 freshes B.; omitted, 1870. _118 by 1870; with B. _119 dew-globes B.; dewdrops 1870. _120 languished B.; vanished 1870. _121 path, as on [bare] B.; footprints, as on 1870. _122 silver B.; silence 1870. _130 And in the moonless nights 1870; cancelled, B. dun B.; dim 1870. _131 Heaved 1870; cancelled, B. wide B.; the 1870. star-impearled B.; omitted, 1870. _132 Starting from dreams 1870; cancelled for He B. _137 autumn B.; autumnal 1870. _138 or B.; and 1870. _155 pennon B.; pennons 1870. _158 athwart B.; across 1870.
***
SONNET.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Our text is that of the “Poetical Works”, 1839.]
Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave _5 Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear. I knew one who had lifted it—he sought, For his lost heart was tender, things to love But found them not, alas! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. _10 Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
NOTES: _6 Their...drear 1839; The shadows, which the world calls substance, there 1824. _7 who had lifted 1839; who lifted 1824.
***
FRAGMENT: TO BYRON.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm, Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?
***
FRAGMENT: APOSTROPHE TO SILENCE.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. A transcript by Mrs. Shelley, given to Charles Cowden Clarke, presents one or two variants.]
Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy Are swallowed up—yet spare me, Spirit, pity me, Until the sounds I hear become my soul, _5 And it has left these faint and weary limbs, To track along the lapses of the air This wandering melody until it rests Among lone mountains in some...
NOTES: _4 Spirit 1862; O Spirit C.C.C. manuscript. _8 This wandering melody 1862; These wandering melodies... C.C.C. manuscript.
***
FRAGMENT: THE LAKE’S MARGIN.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
The fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses Track not the steps of him who drinks of it; For the light breezes, which for ever fleet Around its margin, heap the sand thereon.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘MY HEAD IS WILD WITH WEEPING’.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
My head is wild with weeping for a grief Which is the shadow of a gentle mind. I walk into the air (but no relief To seek,—or haply, if I sought, to find; It came unsought);—to wonder that a chief _5 Among men’s spirits should be cold and blind.
NOTE: _4 find cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
FRAGMENT: THE VINE-SHROUD.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee; For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below The rotting bones of dead antiquity.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1818, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
We often hear of persons disappointed by a first visit to Italy. This was not Shelley’s case. The aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its majestic storms, of the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the noble marble-built cities, enchanted him. The sight of the works of art was full enjoyment and wonder. He had not studied pictures or statues before; he now did so with the eye of taste, that referred not to the rules of schools, but to those of Nature and truth. The first entrance to Rome opened to him a scene of remains of antique grandeur that far surpassed his expectations; and the unspeakable beauty of Naples and its environs added to the impression he received of the transcendent and glorious beauty of Italy.
Our winter was spent at Naples. Here he wrote the fragments of “Marenghi” and “The Woodman and the Nightingale”, which he afterwards threw aside. At this time, Shelley suffered greatly in health. He put himself under the care of a medical man, who promised great things, and made him endure severe bodily pain, without any good results. Constant and poignant physical suffering exhausted him; and though he preserved the appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our wanderings in the environs of Naples, and our excursions on its sunny sea, yet many hours were passed when his thoughts, shadowed by illness, became gloomy,—and then he escaped to solitude, and in verses, which he hid from fear of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too natural bursts of discontent and sadness. One looks back with unspeakable regret and gnawing remorse to such periods; fancying that, had one been more alive to the nature of his feelings, and more attentive to soothe them, such would not have existed. And yet, enjoying as he appeared to do every sight or influence of earth or sky, it was difficult to imagine that any melancholy he showed was aught but the effect of the constant pain to which he was a martyr.
We lived in utter solitude. And such is often not the nurse of cheerfulness; for then, at least with those who have been exposed to adversity, the mind broods over its sorrows too intently; while the society of the enlightened, the witty, and the wise, enables us to forget ourselves by making us the sharers of the thoughts of others, which is a portion of the philosophy of happiness. Shelley never liked society in numbers,—it harassed and wearied him; but neither did he like loneliness, and usually, when alone, sheltered himself against memory and reflection in a book. But, with one or two whom he loved, he gave way to wild and joyous spirits, or in more serious conversation expounded his opinions with vivacity and eloquence. If an argument arose, no man ever argued better. He was clear, logical, and earnest, in supporting his own views; attentive, patient, and impartial, while listening to those on the adverse side. Had not a wall of prejudice been raised at this time between him and his countrymen, how many would have sought the acquaintance of one whom to know was to love and to revere! How many of the more enlightened of his contemporaries have since regretted that they did not seek him! how very few knew his worth while he lived! and, of those few, several were withheld by timidity or envy from declaring their sense of it. But no man was ever more enthusiastically loved—more looked up to, as one superior to his fellows in intellectual endowments and moral worth, by the few who knew him well, and had sufficient nobleness of soul to appreciate his superiority. His excellence is now acknowledged; but, even while admitted, not duly appreciated. For who, except those who were acquainted with him, can imagine his unwearied benevolence, his generosity, his systematic forbearance? And still less is his vast superiority in intellectual attainments sufficiently understood—his sagacity, his clear understanding, his learning, his prodigious memory. All these as displayed in conversation, were known to few while he lived, and are now silent in the tomb:
‘Ahi orbo mondo ingrato! Gran cagion hai di dever pianger meco; Che quel ben ch’ era in te, perdut’ hai seco.’
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1819.
LINES WRITTEN DURING THE CASTLEREAGH ADMINISTRATION.
[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, December 8, 1832; reprinted, “Poetical Works”, 1839. There is a transcript amongst the Harvard manuscripts, and another in the possession of Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn. Variants from these two sources are given by Professor Woodberry, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Centenary Edition, 1893, volume 3 pages 225, 226. The transcripts are referred to in our footnotes as Harvard and Fred. respectively.]
1. Corpses are cold in the tomb; Stones on the pavement are dumb; Abortions are dead in the womb, And their mothers look pale—like the death-white shore Of Albion, free no more. _5
2. Her sons are as stones in the way— They are masses of senseless clay— They are trodden, and move not away,— The abortion with which SHE travaileth Is Liberty, smitten to death. _10
3. Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor! For thy victim is no redresser; Thou art sole lord and possessor Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions—they pave Thy path to the grave. _15
4. Hearest thou the festival din Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin, And Wealth crying “Havoc!” within? ’Tis the bacchanal triumph that makes Truth dumb, Thine Epithalamium. _20
5. Ay, marry thy ghastly wife! Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life! Marry Ruin, thou Tyrant! and Hell be thy guide To the bed of the bride! _25
NOTES: _4 death-white Harvard, Fred.; white 1832, 1839. _16 festival Harvard, Fred., 1839; festal 1832. _19 that Fred.; which Harvard 1832. _22 Disquiet Harvard, Fred., 1839; Disgust 1832. _24 Hell Fred.; God Harvard, 1832, 1839. _25 the bride Harvard, Fred., 1839; thy bride 1832.
***
SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
1. Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low? Wherefore weave with toil and care The rich robes your tyrants wear?
2. Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, _5 From the cradle to the grave, Those ungrateful drones who would Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?
3. Wherefore, Bees of England, forge Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, _10 That these stingless drones may spoil The forced produce of your toil?
4. Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm? Or what is it ye buy so dear _15 With your pain and with your fear?
5. The seed ye sow, another reaps; The wealth ye find, another keeps; The robes ye weave, another wears; The arms ye forge; another bears. _20
6. Sow seed,—but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth,—let no impostor heap; Weave robes,—let not the idle wear; Forge arms,—in your defence to bear.
7. Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; _25 In halls ye deck another dwells. Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
8. With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, Trace your grave, and build your tomb, _30 And weave your winding-sheet, till fair England be your sepulchre.
***
SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819.
[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, August 25, 1832; reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839. Our title is that of 1839, 2nd edition. The poem is found amongst the Harvard manuscripts, headed “To S—th and O—gh”.]
1. As from an ancestral oak Two empty ravens sound their clarion, Yell by yell, and croak by croak, When they scent the noonday smoke Of fresh human carrion:— _5
2. As two gibbering night-birds flit From their bowers of deadly yew Through the night to frighten it, When the moon is in a fit, And the stars are none, or few:— _10
3. As a shark and dog-fish wait Under an Atlantic isle, For the negro-ship, whose freight Is the theme of their debate, Wrinkling their red gills the while— _15
4. Are ye, two vultures sick for battle, Two scorpions under one wet stone, Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle, Two crows perched on the murrained cattle, Two vipers tangled into one. _20
NOTE: _7 yew 1832; hue 1839.
**
FRAGMENT: TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
People of England, ye who toil and groan, Who reap the harvests which are not your own, Who weave the clothes which your oppressors wear, And for your own take the inclement air; Who build warm houses... _5 And are like gods who give them all they have, And nurse them from the cradle to the grave...
...
***
FRAGMENT: ‘WHAT MEN GAIN FAIRLY’. (Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman).—ED.)
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
What men gain fairly—that they should possess, And children may inherit idleness, From him who earns it—This is understood; Private injustice may be general good. But he who gains by base and armed wrong, _5 Or guilty fraud, or base compliances, May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress Is stripped from a convicted thief; and he Left in the nakedness of infamy.
***
A NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
1. God prosper, speed, and save, God raise from England’s grave Her murdered Queen! Pave with swift victory The steps of Liberty, _5 Whom Britons own to be Immortal Queen.
2. See, she comes throned on high, On swift Eternity! God save the Queen! _10 Millions on millions wait, Firm, rapid, and elate, On her majestic state! God save the Queen!
3. She is Thine own pure soul _15 Moulding the mighty whole,— God save the Queen! She is Thine own deep love Rained down from Heaven above,— Wherever she rest or move, _20 God save our Queen!
4. ‘Wilder her enemies In their own dark disguise,— God save our Queen! All earthly things that dare _25 Her sacred name to bear, Strip them, as kings are, bare; God save the Queen!
5. Be her eternal throne Built in our hearts alone— _30 God save the Queen! Let the oppressor hold Canopied seats of gold; She sits enthroned of old O’er our hearts Queen. _35
6. Lips touched by seraphim Breathe out the choral hymn ‘God save the Queen!’ Sweet as if angels sang, Loud as that trumpet’s clang _40 Wakening the world’s dead gang,— God save the Queen!
***
SONNET: ENGLAND IN 1819.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,— Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,— Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, _5 Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,— A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,— An army, which liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,— Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; _10 Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed; A Senate,—Time’s worst statute, unrepealed,— Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
***
AN ODE, WRITTEN OCTOBER, 1819, BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED THEIR LIBERTY.
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
Arise, arise, arise! There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread; Be your wounds like eyes To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. What other grief were it just to pay? _5 Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they; Who said they were slain on the battle day?
Awaken, awaken, awaken! The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes; Be the cold chains shaken _10 To the dust where your kindred repose, repose: Their bones in the grave will start and move, When they hear the voices of those they love, Most loud in the holy combat above.
Wave, wave high the banner! _15 When Freedom is riding to conquest by: Though the slaves that fan her Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh. And ye who attend her imperial car, Lift not your hands in the banded war, _20 But in her defence whose children ye are.
Glory, glory, glory, To those who have greatly suffered and done! Never name in story Was greater than that which ye shall have won. _25 Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.
Bind, bind every brow With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine: _30 Hide the blood-stains now With hues which sweet Nature has made divine: Green strength, azure hope, and eternity: But let not the pansy among them be; Ye were injured, and that means memory. _35
***
CANCELLED STANZA.
[Published in “The Times” (Rossetti).]
Gather, O gather, Foeman and friend in love and peace! Waves sleep together When the blasts that called them to battle, cease. For fangless Power grown tame and mild _5 Is at play with Freedom’s fearless child— The dove and the serpent reconciled!
***
ODE TO HEAVEN.
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Florence, December, 1819’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., page 39.]
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT: Palace-roof of cloudless nights! Paradise of golden lights! Deep, immeasurable, vast, Which art now, and which wert then Of the Present and the Past, _5 Of the eternal Where and When, Presence-chamber, temple, home, Ever-canopying dome, Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee, _10 Earth, and all earth’s company; Living globes which ever throng Thy deep chasms and wildernesses; And green worlds that glide along; And swift stars with flashing tresses; _15 And icy moons most cold and bright, And mighty suns beyond the night, Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god, Heaven! for thou art the abode _20 Of that Power which is the glass Wherein man his nature sees. Generations as they pass Worship thee with bended knees. Their unremaining gods and they _25 Like a river roll away: Thou remainest such—alway!—
SECOND SPIRIT: Thou art but the mind’s first chamber, Round which its young fancies clamber, Like weak insects in a cave, _30 Lighted up by stalactites; But the portal of the grave, Where a world of new delights Will make thy best glories seem But a dim and noonday gleam _35 From the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT: Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is Heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? _40 What are suns and spheres which flee With the instinct of that Spirit Of which ye are but a part? Drops which Nature’s mighty heart Drives through thinnest veins! Depart! _45
What is Heaven? a globe of dew, Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world: Constellated suns unshaken, _50 Orbits measureless, are furled In that frail and fading sphere, With ten millions gathered there, To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
***
CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]
The [living frame which sustains my soul] Is [sinking beneath the fierce control] Down through the lampless deep of song I am drawn and driven along—
When a Nation screams aloud _5 Like an eagle from the cloud When a...
...
When the night...
...
Watch the look askance and old— See neglect, and falsehood fold... _10
***
ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
(This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
1. O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, _5 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill _10 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
2. Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, _15 Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aery surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head _20
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, _25 Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
3. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, _30 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers _35 So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know _40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
4. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share _45
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed _50 Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed _55 One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
5. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, _60 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, _65
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? _70
***
AN EXHORTATION.
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Pisa, April, 1820’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to 1819.]
Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets’ food is love and fame: If in this wide world of care Poets could but find the same With as little toil as they, _5 Would they ever change their hue As the light chameleons do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a day?
Poets are on this cold earth, _10 As chameleons might be, Hidden from their early birth in a cave beneath the sea; Where light is, chameleons change: Where love is not, poets do: _15 Fame is love disguised: if few Find either, never think it strange That poets range.
Yet dare not stain with wealth or power A poet’s free and heavenly mind: _20 If bright chameleons should devour Any food but beams and wind, They would grow as earthly soon As their brother lizards are. Children of a sunnier star, _25 Spirits from beyond the moon, Oh, refuse the boon!
***
THE INDIAN SERENADE.
[Published, with the title, “Song written for an Indian Air”, in “The Liberal”, 2, 1822. Reprinted (“Lines to an Indian Air”) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. The poem is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and there is a description by Robert Browning of an autograph copy presenting some variations from the text of 1824. See Leigh Hunt’s “Correspondence”, 2, pages 264-8.]
1. I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, _5 And a spirit in my feet Hath led me—who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet!
2. The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream— _10 The Champak odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale’s complaint, It dies upon her heart;— As I must on thine, _15 Oh, beloved as thou art!
3. Oh lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. _20 My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast;— Oh! press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last.
NOTES: _3 Harvard manuscript omits When. _4 shining]burning Harvard manuscript, 1822. _7 Hath led Browning manuscript, 1822; Has borne Harvard manuscript; Has led 1824. _11 The Champak Harvard manuscript, 1822, 1824; And the Champak’s Browning manuscript. _15 As I must on 1822, 1824; As I must die on Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition. _16 Oh, beloved Browning manuscript, Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition; Beloved 1822, 1824. _23 press it to thine own Browning manuscript; press it close to thine Harvard manuscript, 1824, 1839, 1st edition; press me to thine own, 1822.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
O pillow cold and wet with tears! Thou breathest sleep no more!
***
TO SOPHIA [MISS STACEY].
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
1. Thou art fair, and few are fairer Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean; They are robes that fit the wearer— Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion Ever falls and shifts and glances _5 As the life within them dances.
2. Thy deep eyes, a double Planet, Gaze the wisest into madness With soft clear fire,—the winds that fan it Are those thoughts of tender gladness _10 Which, like zephyrs on the billow, Make thy gentle soul their pillow.
3. If, whatever face thou paintest In those eyes, grows pale with pleasure, If the fainting soul is faintest _15 When it hears thy harp’s wild measure, Wonder not that when thou speakest Of the weak my heart is weakest.
4. As dew beneath the wind of morning, As the sea which whirlwinds waken, _20 As the birds at thunder’s warning, As aught mute yet deeply shaken, As one who feels an unseen spirit Is my heart when thine is near it.
***
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. The fragment included in the Harvard manuscript book.]
(With what truth may I say— Roma! Roma! Roma! Non e piu come era prima!)
1. My lost William, thou in whom Some bright spirit lived, and did That decaying robe consume Which its lustre faintly hid,— Here its ashes find a tomb, _5 But beneath this pyramid Thou art not—if a thing divine Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine Is thy mother’s grief and mine.
2. Where art thou, my gentle child? _10 Let me think thy spirit feeds, With its life intense and mild, The love of living leaves and weeds Among these tombs and ruins wild;— Let me think that through low seeds _15 Of sweet flowers and sunny grass Into their hues and scents may pass A portion—
NOTE:
Motto _1 may I Harvard manuscript; I may 1824. _12 With Harvard manuscript, Mrs. Shelley, 1847; Within 1824, 1839. _16 Of sweet Harvard manuscript; Of the sweet 1824, 1839.
***
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Thy little footsteps on the sands Of a remote and lonely shore; The twinkling of thine infant hands, Where now the worm will feed no more; Thy mingled look of love and glee _5 When we returned to gaze on thee—
***
TO MARY SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, And left me in this dreary world alone? Thy form is here indeed—a lovely one— But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, That leads to Sorrow’s most obscure abode; _5 Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair, Where For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.
***
TO MARY SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
The world is dreary, And I am weary Of wandering on without thee, Mary; A joy was erewhile In thy voice and thy smile, _5 And ’tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.
***
ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine; Below, far lands are seen tremblingly; Its horror and its beauty are divine. Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie _5 Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death.
2. Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer’s spirit into stone, _10 Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; ’Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain. _15
3. And from its head as from one body grow, As ... grass out of a watery rock, Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow And their long tangles in each other lock, _20 And with unending involutions show Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw.
4. And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft _25 Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes; Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft, And he comes hastening like a moth that hies _30 After a taper; and the midnight sky Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.
5. ’Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare Kindled by that inextricable error, _35 Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a ... and 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. _40
NOTES: _5 seems 1839; seem 1824. _6 shine]shrine 1824, 1839. _26 those 1824; these 1839.
***
LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY.
[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Indicator”, December 22, 1819. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is headed “An Anacreontic”, and dated ‘January, 1820.’ Written by Shelley in a copy of Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, and presented to Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]
1. The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; _5 All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?—
2. See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the waves clasp one another; _10 No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth _15 If thou kiss not me?
NOTES: _3 mix for ever 1819, Stacey manuscript; meet together, Harvard manuscript. _7 In one spirit meet and Stacey manuscript; In one another’s being 1819, Harvard manuscript. _11 No sister 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts; No leaf or 1819. _12 disdained its 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts; disdained to kiss its 1819. _15 is all this sweet work Stacey manuscript; were these examples Harvard manuscript; are all these kissings 1819, 1824.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘FOLLOW TO THE DEEP WOOD’S WEEDS’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Follow to the deep wood’s weeds, Follow to the wild-briar dingle, Where we seek to intermingle, And the violet tells her tale To the odour-scented gale, _5 For they two have enough to do Of such work as I and you.
***
THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
At the creation of the Earth Pleasure, that divinest birth, From the soil of Heaven did rise, Wrapped in sweet wild melodies— Like an exhalation wreathing _5 To the sound of air low-breathing Through Aeolian pines, which make A shade and shelter to the lake Whence it rises soft and slow; Her life-breathing [limbs] did flow _10 In the harmony divine Of an ever-lengthening line Which enwrapped her perfect form With a beauty clear and warm.
***
FRAGMENT: LOVE THE UNIVERSE TO-DAY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
And who feels discord now or sorrow? Love is the universe to-day— These are the slaves of dim to-morrow, Darkening Life’s labyrinthine way.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘A GENTLE STORY OF TWO LOVERS YOUNG’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
A gentle story of two lovers young, Who met in innocence and died in sorrow, And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow The lore of truth from such a tale? _5 Or in this world’s deserted vale, Do ye not see a star of gladness Pierce the shadows of its sadness,— When ye are cold, that love is a light sent From Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent? _10
NOTE: _9 cold]told cj. A.C. Bradley. For the metre cp. Fragment: To a Friend Released from Prison.
***
FRAGMENT: LOVE’S TENDER ATMOSPHERE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
There is a warm and gentle atmosphere About the form of one we love, and thus As in a tender mist our spirits are Wrapped in the ... of that which is to us The health of life’s own life— _5
***
FRAGMENT: WEDDED SOULS.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
I am as a spirit who has dwelt Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known The inmost converse of his soul, the tone Unheard but in the silence of his blood, _5 When all the pulses in their multitude Image the trembling calm of summer seas. I have unlocked the golden melodies Of his deep soul, as with a master-key, And loosened them and bathed myself therein— _10 Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist Clothing his wings with lightning.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘IS IT THAT IN SOME BRIGHTER SPHERE’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Is it that in some brighter sphere We part from friends we meet with here? Or do we see the Future pass Over the Present’s dusky glass? Or what is that that makes us seem _5 To patch up fragments of a dream, Part of which comes true, and part Beats and trembles in the heart?
***
FRAGMENT: SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer Into the darkness of the day to come? Is not to-morrow even as yesterday? And will the day that follows change thy doom? Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way; _5 And who waits for thee in that cheerless home Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
***
FRAGMENT: ‘YE GENTLE VISITATIONS OF CALM THOUGHT’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Ye gentle visitations of calm thought— Moods like the memories of happier earth, Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth, Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought,— But that the clouds depart and stars remain, _5 While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!
***
FRAGMENT: MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
How sweet it is to sit and read the tales Of mighty poets and to hear the while Sweet music, which when the attention fails Fills the dim pause—
***
FRAGMENT: THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
And where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee Has been my heart—and thy dead memory Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year, Unchangingly preserved and buried there.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
1. When a lover clasps his fairest, Then be our dread sport the rarest. Their caresses were like the chaff In the tempest, and be our laugh His despair—her epitaph! _5
2. When a mother clasps her child, Watch till dusty Death has piled His cold ashes on the clay; She has loved it many a day— She remains,—it fades away. _10
***
FRAGMENT: ‘WAKE THE SERPENT NOT’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
Wake the serpent not—lest he Should not know the way to go,— Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping Through the deep grass of the meadow! Not a bee shall hear him creeping, _5 Not a may-fly shall awaken From its cradling blue-bell shaken, Not the starlight as he’s sliding Through the grass with silent gliding.
***
FRAGMENT: RAIN.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
The fitful alternations of the rain, When the chill wind, languid as with pain Of its own heavy moisture, here and there Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.
***
FRAGMENT: A TALE UNTOLD.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
One sung of thee who left the tale untold, Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting; Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold, Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.
***
FRAGMENT: TO ITALY.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
As the sunrise to the night, As the north wind to the clouds, As the earthquake’s fiery flight, Ruining mountain solitudes, Everlasting Italy, _5 Be those hopes and fears on thee.
***
FRAGMENT: WINE OF THE FAIRIES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
I am drunk with the honey wine Of the moon-unfolded eglantine, Which fairies catch in hyacinth bowls. The bats, the dormice, and the moles Sleep in the walls or under the sward _5 Of the desolate castle yard; And when ’tis spilt on the summer earth Or its fumes arise among the dew, Their jocund dreams are full of mirth, They gibber their joy in sleep; for few _10 Of the fairies bear those bowls so new!
***
FRAGMENT: A ROMAN’S CHAMBER.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
1. In the cave which wild weeds cover Wait for thine aethereal lover; For the pallid moon is waning, O’er the spiral cypress hanging And the moon no cloud is staining. _5
2. It was once a Roman’s chamber, Where he kept his darkest revels, And the wild weeds twine and clamber; It was then a chasm for devils.
***
FRAGMENT: ROME AND NATURE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
Rome has fallen, ye see it lying Heaped in undistinguished ruin: Nature is alone undying.
***
VARIATION OF THE SONG OF THE MOON.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
(“PROMETHEUS UNBOUND”, ACT 4.)
As a violet’s gentle eye Gazes on the azure sky Until its hue grows like what it beholds; As a gray and empty mist Lies like solid amethyst _5 Over the western mountain it enfolds, When the sunset sleeps Upon its snow; As a strain of sweetest sound Wraps itself the wind around _10 Until the voiceless wind be music too; As aught dark, vain, and dull, Basking in what is beautiful, Is full of light and love—
***
CANCELLED STANZA OF THE MASK OF ANARCHY.
[Published by H. Buxton Forman, “The Mask of Anarchy” (“Facsimile of Shelley’s manuscript”), 1887.]
(FOR WHICH STANZAS 68, 69 HAVE BEEN SUBSTITUTED.)
From the cities where from caves, Like the dead from putrid graves, Troops of starvelings gliding come, Living Tenants of a tomb.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1819, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
Shelley loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people’s side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heart-felt compassion he went home to the direct point of injury—that oppression is detestable as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the scope of the “Ode to the Assertors of Liberty”. He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820.
THE SENSITIVE PLANT.
[Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated ‘March, 1820,’ in Harvard manuscript), and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, the same year: included in the Harvard College manuscript book. Reprinted in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions.]
## PART 1.
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
And the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, _10 Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent _15 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness; _20
And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions of tender green;
And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, _25 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odour within the sense;
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, _30 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:
And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; _35
And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime. _40
And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue,
Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, _45 And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, _50 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,
Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells As fair as the fabulous asphodels, And flow’rets which, drooping as day drooped too, _55 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.
And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant’s awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet _60 Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),
When Heaven’s blithe winds had unfolded them, As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one _65 Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;
For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.
But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit _70 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, Received more than all, it loved more than ever, Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,—
For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; Radiance and odour are not its dower; _75 It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!
The light winds which from unsustaining wings Shed the music of many murmurings; The beams which dart from many a star _80 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;
The plumed insects swift and free, Like golden boats on a sunny sea, Laden with light and odour, which pass Over the gleam of the living grass; _85
The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, Then wander like spirits among the spheres, Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;
The quivering vapours of dim noontide, _90 Which like a sea o’er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move, as reeds in a single stream;
Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, _95 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o’er a tender sky.
And when evening descended from Heaven above, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, _100 And the day’s veil fell from the world of sleep,
And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; _105
(Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);—
The Sensitive Plant was the earliest _110 Upgathered into the bosom of rest; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of Night.
NOTES: _6 Like the Spirit of Love felt 1820; And the Spirit of Love felt 1839, 1st edition; And the Spirit of Love fell 1839, 2nd edition. _49 and of moss]and moss Harvard manuscript. _82 The]And the Harvard manuscript.
## PART 2.
There was a Power in this sweet place, An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, Was as God is to the starry scheme.
A Lady, the wonder of her kind, _5 Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,
Tended the garden from morn to even: And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven, _10 Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth!
She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, _15 That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:
As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Had deserted Heaven while the stars were awake, As if yet around her he lingering were, Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. _20
Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed; You might hear by the heaving of her breast, That the coming and going of the wind Brought pleasure there and left passion behind.
And wherever her aery footstep trod, _25 Her trailing hair from the grassy sod Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, Like a sunny storm o’er the dark green deep.
I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; _30 I doubt not they felt the spirit that came From her glowing fingers through all their frame.
She sprinkled bright water from the stream On those that were faint with the sunny beam; And out of the cups of the heavy flowers _35 She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers.
She lifted their heads with her tender hands, And sustained them with rods and osier-bands; If the flowers had been her own infants, she Could never have nursed them more tenderly. _40
And all killing insects and gnawing worms, And things of obscene and unlovely forms, She bore, in a basket of Indian woof, Into the rough woods far aloof,—
In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, _45 The freshest her gentle hands could pull For the poor banished insects, whose intent, Although they did ill, was innocent.
But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris Whose path is the lightning’s, and soft moths that kiss _50 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be.
And many an antenatal tomb, Where butterflies dream of the life to come, She left clinging round the smooth and dark _55 Edge of the odorous cedar bark.
This fairest creature from earliest Spring Thus moved through the garden ministering Mid the sweet season of Summertide, And ere the first leaf looked brown—she died! _60
NOTES: _15 morn Harvard manuscript, 1839; moon 1820. _23 and going 1820; and the going Harvard manuscript, 1839. _59 All 1820, 1839; Through all Harvard manuscript.
## PART 3.
Three days the flowers of the garden fair, Like stars when the moon is awakened, were, Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.
And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant _5 Felt the sound of the funeral chant, And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low;
The weary sound and the heavy breath, And the silent motions of passing death, _10 And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank;
The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass; From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, _15 And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.
The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, Like the corpse of her who had been its soul, Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap _20 To make men tremble who never weep.
Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed, And frost in the mist of the morning rode, Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, Mocking the spoil of the secret night. _25
The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, Paved the turf and the moss below. The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, Like the head and the skin of a dying man.
And Indian plants, of scent and hue _30 The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, Leaf by leaf, day after day, Were massed into the common clay.
And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red, And white with the whiteness of what is dead, _35 Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed; Their whistling noise made the birds aghast.
And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds, Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, Till they clung round many a sweet flower’s stem, _40 Which rotted into the earth with them.
The water-blooms under the rivulet Fell from the stalks on which they were set; And the eddies drove them here and there, As the winds did those of the upper air. _45
Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks Were bent and tangled across the walks; And the leafless network of parasite bowers Massed into ruin; and all sweet flowers.
Between the time of the wind and the snow _50 All loathliest weeds began to grow, Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, Like the water-snake’s belly and the toad’s back.
And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, _55 Stretched out its long and hollow shank, And stifled the air till the dead wind stank.
And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, _60 Livid, and starred with a lurid dew.
And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould Started like mist from the wet ground cold; Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead With a spirit of growth had been animated! _65
Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, Made the running rivulet thick and dumb, And at its outlet flags huge as stakes Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.
And hour by hour, when the air was still, _70 The vapours arose which have strength to kill; At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, At night they were darkness no star could melt.
And unctuous meteors from spray to spray Crept and flitted in broad noonday _75 Unseen; every branch on which they alit By a venomous blight was burned and bit.
The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, Wept, and the tears within each lid Of its folded leaves, which together grew, _80 Were changed to a blight of frozen glue.
For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn; The sap shrank to the root through every pore As blood to a heart that will beat no more. _85
For Winter came: the wind was his whip: One choppy finger was on his lip: He had torn the cataracts from the hills And they clanked at his girdle like manacles;
His breath was a chain which without a sound _90 The earth, and the air, and the water bound; He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone.
Then the weeds which were forms of living death Fled from the frost to the earth beneath. _95 Their decay and sudden flight from frost Was but like the vanishing of a ghost!
And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant The moles and the dormice died for want: The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air _100 And were caught in the branches naked and bare.
First there came down a thawing rain And its dull drops froze on the boughs again; Then there steamed up a freezing dew Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; _105
And a northern whirlwind, wandering about Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff, And snapped them off with his rigid griff.
When Winter had gone and Spring came back _110 The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.
CONCLUSION.
Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat, _115 Ere its outward form had known decay, Now felt this change, I cannot say.
Whether that Lady’s gentle mind, No longer with the form combined Which scattered love, as stars do light, _120 Found sadness, where it left delight,
I dare not guess; but in this life Of error, ignorance, and strife, Where nothing is, but all things seem, And we the shadows of the dream, _125
It is a modest creed, and yet Pleasant if one considers it, To own that death itself must be, Like all the rest, a mockery.
That garden sweet, that lady fair, _130 And all sweet shapes and odours there, In truth have never passed away: ’Tis we, ’tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight, There is no death nor change: their might _135 Exceeds our organs, which endure No light, being themselves obscure.
NOTES: _19 lovely Harvard manuscript, 1839; lively 1820. _23 of the morning 1820, 1839; of morning Harvard manuscript. _26 snow Harvard manuscript, 1839; now 1820. _28 And lilies were drooping, white and wan Harvard manuscript. _32 Leaf by leaf, day after day Harvard manuscript; Leaf after leaf, day after day 1820; Leaf after leaf, day by day 1839. _63 mist]mists Harvard manuscript. _96 and sudden flight]and their sudden flight the Harvard manuscript. _98 And under]Under Harvard manuscript. _114 Whether]And if Harvard manuscript. _118 Whether]Or if Harvard manuscript.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE.
[This stanza followed 3, 62-65 in the editio princeps, 1820, but was omitted by Mrs. Shelley from all editions from 1839 onwards. It is cancelled in the Harvard manuscript.]
Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer’s stake, Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, Infecting the winds that wander by.
***
A VISION OF THE SEA.
[Composed at Pisa early in 1820, and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year. A transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting is included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is dated ‘April, 1820.’]
’Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale: From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven, And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven, She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin _5 And bend, as if Heaven was ruining in, Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass As if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they pass To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound, And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, _10 Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed Through the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lost In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale _15 Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale, Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about; While the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a rout Of death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron, With splendour and terror the black ship environ, _20 Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fire In fountains spout o’er it. In many a spire The pyramid-billows with white points of brine In the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine, As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea. _25 The great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree, While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blast Of the whirlwind that stripped it of branches has passed. The intense thunder-balls which are raining from Heaven Have shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. _30 The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulk On the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk, Like a corpse on the clay which is hungering to fold Its corruption around it. Meanwhile, from the hold, One deck is burst up by the waters below, _35 And it splits like the ice when the thaw-breezes blow O’er the lakes of the desert! Who sit on the other? Is that all the crew that lie burying each other, Like the dead in a breach, round the foremast? Are those Twin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, _40 In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold; (What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold;) Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank, The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating plank Are these all? Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain _45 On the windless expanse of the watery plain, Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon, And there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon, Till a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep, Whose breath was quick pestilence; then, the cold sleep _50 Crept, like blight through the ears of a thick field of corn, O’er the populous vessel. And even and morn, With their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghast Like dead men the dead limbs of their comrades cast Down the deep, which closed on them above and around, _55 And the sharks and the dogfish their grave-clothes unbound, And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained down From God on their wilderness. One after one The mariners died; on the eve of this day, When the tempest was gathering in cloudy array, _60 But seven remained. Six the thunder has smitten, And they lie black as mummies on which Time has written His scorn of the embalmer; the seventh, from the deck An oak-splinter pierced through his breast and his back, And hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck. _65 No more? At the helm sits a woman more fair Than Heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair, It sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea. She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee; It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder _70 Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonder It is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near, It would play with those eyes where the radiance of fear Is outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high, The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye, _75 While its mother’s is lustreless. ‘Smile not, my child, But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiled Of the pang that awaits us, whatever that be, So dreadful since thou must divide it with me! Dream, sleep! This pale bosom, thy cradle and bed, _80 Will it rock thee not, infant? ’Tis beating with dread! Alas! what is life, what is death, what are we, That when the ship sinks we no longer may be? What! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more? To be after life what we have been before? _85 Not to touch those sweet hands? Not to look on those eyes, Those lips, and that hair,—all the smiling disguise Thou yet wearest, sweet Spirit, which I, day by day, Have so long called my child, but which now fades away Like a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?’—Lo! the ship _90 Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip; The tigers leap up when they feel the slow brine Crawling inch by inch on them; hair, ears, limbs, and eyne, Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cry Bursts at once from their vitals tremendously, _95 And ’tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave, Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave, Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain, Hurried on by the might of the hurricane: The hurricane came from the west, and passed on _100 By the path of the gate of the eastern sun, Transversely dividing the stream of the storm; As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the form Of an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste. Black as a cormorant the screaming blast, _105 Between Ocean and Heaven, like an ocean, passed, Till it came to the clouds on the verge of the world Which, based on the sea and to Heaven upcurled, Like columns and walls did surround and sustain The dome of the tempest; it rent them in twain, _110 As a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag: And the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag, Like the stones of a temple ere earthquake has passed, Like the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast; They are scattered like foam on the torrent; and where _115 The wind has burst out through the chasm, from the air Of clear morning the beams of the sunrise flow in, Unimpeded, keen, golden, and crystalline, Banded armies of light and of air; at one gate They encounter, but interpenetrate. _120 And that breach in the tempest is widening away, And the caverns of cloud are torn up by the day, And the fierce winds are sinking with weary wings, Lulled by the motion and murmurings And the long glassy heave of the rocking sea, _125 And overhead glorious, but dreadful to see, The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold, Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves behold The deep calm of blue Heaven dilating above, And, like passions made still by the presence of Love, _130 Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slide Tremulous with soft influence; extending its tide From the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle, Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with Heaven’s azure smile, The wide world of waters is vibrating. Where _135 Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it lay One tiger is mingled in ghastly affray With a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battle Stain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the rattle Of solid bones crushed by the infinite stress _140 Of the snake’s adamantine voluminousness; And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rains Where the gripe of the tiger has wounded the veins Swollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splash As of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash _145 The thin winds and soft waves into thunder; the screams And hissings crawl fast o’er the smooth ocean-streams, Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion, A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean, The fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other _150 Is winning his way from the fate of his brother To his own with the speed of despair. Lo! a boat Advances; twelve rowers with the impulse of thought Urge on the keen keel,—the brine foams. At the stern Three marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets burn _155 In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him on To his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone,— ’Tis dwindling and sinking, ’tis now almost gone,— Of the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea. With her left hand she grasps it impetuously. _160 With her right she sustains her fair infant. Death, Fear, Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere, Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dread Around her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head, Like a meteor of light o’er the waters! her child _165 Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring; so smiled The false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brother The child and the ocean still smile on each other, Whilst—
NOTES: _6 ruining Harvard manuscript, 1839; raining 1820. _8 sunk Harvard manuscript, 1839; sank 1820. _35 by Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839. _61 has 1820; had 1839. _87 all the Harvard manuscript; all that 1820, 1839. _116 through Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839. _121 away]alway cj. A.C. Bradley. _122 cloud Harvard manuscript, 1839; clouds 1820. _160 impetuously 1820, 1839; convulsively Harvard manuscript.
***
THE CLOUD.
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken _5 The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, _10 And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night ’tis my pillow white, _15 While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; _20 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills. _25 Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. _30
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead; As on the jag of a mountain crag, _35 Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, _40 And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of Heaven above. With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest, As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden, _45 Whom mortals call the Moon, Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, _50 May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof. The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees. When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, _55 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone, And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl; _60 The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hand like a roof,— _65 The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow; _70 The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; _75 I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, _80 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
NOTES: _3 shade 1820; shades 1839. _6 buds 1839; birds 1820. _59 with a 1820; with the 1830.
***
TO A SKYLARK.
[Composed at Leghorn, 1820, and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year. There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript.]
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. _5
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. _10
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O’er which clouds are bright’ning. Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. _15
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of Heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, _20
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there. _25
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed. _30
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. _35
Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: _40
Like a high-born maiden In a palace-tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: _45
Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aereal hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view! _50
Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves: _55
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass: _60
Teach us, Sprite or Bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. _65
Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. _70
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? _75
With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest—but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. _80
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? _85
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. _90
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. _95
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! _100
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then—as I am listening now. _105
NOTE: _55 those Harvard manuscript: these 1820, 1839.
***
ODE TO LIBERTY.
[Composed early in 1820, and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, in the same year. A transcript in Shelley’s hand of lines 1-21 is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and amongst the Boscombe manuscripts there is a fragment of a rough draft (Garnett). For further particulars concerning the text see Editor’s Notes.]
Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying, Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.—BYRON.
1. A glorious people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o’er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, _5 And in the rapid plumes of song Clothed itself, sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering inverse o’er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the Heaven of fame _10 The Spirit’s whirlwind rapped it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship’s swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep: I will record the same. _15
2. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth: The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: _20 But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, _25 And there was war among them, and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. _30
3. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied His generations under the pavilion Of the Sun’s throne: palace and pyramid, Temple and prison, to many a swarming million Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. _35 This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o’er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified _40 The sister-pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. _45
4. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. _50 On the unapprehensive wild The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man’s thought dark in the infant’s brain, _55 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art’s deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o’er the Aegean main _60
5. Athens arose: a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; _65 Its portals are inhabited By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,— A divine work! Athens, diviner yet, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will _70 Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. _75
6. Within the surface of Time’s fleeting river Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it cannot pass away! The voices of thy bards and sages thunder _80 With an earth-awakening blast Through the caverns of the past: (Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:) A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew, _85 Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vast With life and love makes chaos ever new, As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. _90
7. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad, She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest From that Elysian food was yet unweaned; And many a deed of terrible uprightness _95 By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness, And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, _100 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown _105
8. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, Or utmost islet inaccessible, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, _110 And every Naiad’s ice-cold urn, To talk in echoes sad and stern Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks Of the Scald’s dreams, nor haunt the Druid’s sleep. _115 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep, When from its sea of death, to kill and burn, The Galilean serpent forth did creep, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. _120
9. A thousand years the Earth cried, ‘Where art thou?’ And then the shadow of thy coming fell On Saxon Alfred’s olive-cinctured brow: And many a warrior-peopled citadel. Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, _125 Arose in sacred Italy, Frowning o’er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep And burst around their walls, like idle foam, _130 Whilst from the human spirit’s deepest deep Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die, With divine wand traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave Heaven’s everlasting dome. _135
10. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror Of the world’s wolves! thou bearer of the quiver, Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever In the calm regions of the orient day! _140 Luther caught thy wakening glance; Like lightning, from his leaden lance Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay; And England’s prophets hailed thee as their queen, _145 In songs whose music cannot pass away, Though it must flow forever: not unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. _150
11. The eager hours and unreluctant years As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood. Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their multitude, And cried aloud, ‘Liberty!’ Indignation _155 Answered Pity from her cave; Death grew pale within the grave, And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! When like Heaven’s Sun girt by the exhalation Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise. _160 Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o’er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. _165
12. Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then In ominous eclipse? a thousand years Bred from the slime of deep Oppression’s den. Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears. Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; _170 How like Bacchanals of blood Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction’s sceptred slaves, and Folly’s mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, _175 Rose: armies mingled in obscure array, Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers Of serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued, Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. _180
13. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Aetna, and the cold Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: O’er the lit waves every Aeolian isle _185 From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: They cry, ‘Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o’er us!’ Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile And they dissolve; but Spain’s were links of steel, _190 Till bit to dust by virtue’s keenest file. Twins of a single destiny! appeal To the eternal years enthroned before us In the dim West; impress us from a seal, All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. _195
14. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead Till, like a standard from a watch-tower’s staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant’s head; Thy victory shall be his epitaph, Wild Bacchanal of truth’s mysterious wine, _200 King-deluded Germany, His dead spirit lives in thee. Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And thou, lost Paradise of this divine And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! _205 Thou island of eternity! thou shrine Where Desolation, clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. _210
15. Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name Of KING into the dust! or write it there, So that this blot upon the page of fame Were as a serpent’s path, which the light air Erases, and the flat sands close behind! _215 Ye the oracle have heard: Lift the victory-flashing sword. And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind Into a mass, irrefragably firm, _220 The axes and the rods which awe mankind; The sound has poison in it, ’tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred; Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. _225
16. Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle Into the hell from which it first was hurled, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; _230 Till human thoughts might kneel alone, Each before the judgement-throne Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown! Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew _235 From a white lake blot Heaven’s blue portraiture, Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, Till in the nakedness of false and true They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due! _240
17. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Can be between the cradle and the grave Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour! If on his own high will, a willing slave, He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor _245 What if earth can clothe and feed Amplest millions at their need, And power in thought be as the tree within the seed? Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor, Driving on fiery wings to Nature’s throne, _250 Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, And cries: ‘Give me, thy child, dominion Over all height and depth’? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan, Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one! _255
18. Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man’s deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; _260 Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life’s ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? _265 O Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears?—The solemn harmony _270
19. Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn; Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light _275 On the heavy-sounding plain, When the bolt has pierced its brain; As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain; As a far taper fades with fading night, As a brief insect dies with dying day,— _280 My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped; o’er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner’s head in their tempestuous play. _285
NOTES: _4 into]unto Harvard manuscript. _9 inverse cj. Rossetti; in verse 1820. _92 See the Bacchae of Euripides—[SHELLEY’S NOTE]. _113 lore 1839; love 1820. _116 shattered]scattered cj. Rossetti. _134 wand 1820; want 1830. _194 us]as cj. Forman. _212 KING Boscombe manuscript; **** 1820, 1839; CHRIST cj. Swinburne. _249 Or 1839; O, 1820. _250 Driving 1820; Diving 1839.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE OF THE ODE TO LIBERTY.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Within a cavern of man’s trackless spirit Is throned an Image, so intensely fair That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it Worship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear The splendour of its presence, and the light _5 Penetrates their dreamlike frame Till they become charged with the strength of flame.
***
TO —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine.
2. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, _5 Thou needest not fear mine; Innocent is the heart’s devotion With which I worship thine.
***
ARETHUSA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated by her ‘Pisa, 1820.’ There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 24.]
1. Arethusa arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains,— From cloud and from crag, With many a jag, _5 Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks, With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams;— Her steps paved with green _10 The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams; And gliding and springing She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep; _15 The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.
2. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, _20 With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks—with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind _25 It unsealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below. _30 And the beard and the hair Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent’s sweep, As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph’s flight _35 To the brink of the Dorian deep.
3. ‘Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair!’ The loud Ocean heard, _40 To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer; And under the water The Earth’s white daughter Fled like a sunny beam; _45 Behind her descended Her billows, unblended With the brackish Dorian stream:— Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main _50 Alpheus rushed behind,— As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
4. Under the bowers _55 Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearled thrones; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones; _60 Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a network of coloured light; And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves _65 Are as green as the forest’s night:— Outspeeding the shark, And the sword-fish dark, Under the Ocean’s foam, And up through the rifts _70 Of the mountain clifts They passed to their Dorian home.
5. And now from their fountains In Enna’s mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, _75 Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep _80 In the cave of the shelving hill; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel; And at night they sleep _85 In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore;— Like spirits that lie In the azure sky When they love but live no more. _90
NOTES: _6 unsealed B.; concealed 1824. _31 And the B.; The 1824. _69 Ocean’s B.; ocean 1824.
***
SONG OF PROSERPINE WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination,” etc., 1903, page 24.]
1. Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, Breathe thine influence most divine _5 On thine own child, Proserpine.
2. If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers Till they grow, in scent and hue, Fairest children of the Hours, _10 Breathe thine influence most divine On thine own child, Proserpine.
***
HYMN OF APOLLO.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]
1. The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries From the broad moonlight of the sky, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,— Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, _5 Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.
2. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome, I walk over the mountains and the waves, Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam; My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves _10 Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
3. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine ill _15 Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of Night.
4. I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers With their aethereal colours; the moon’s globe _20 And the pure stars in their eternal bowers Are cinctured with my power as with a robe; Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine Are portions of one power, which is mine.
5. I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, _25 Then with unwilling steps I wander down Into the clouds of the Atlantic even; For grief that I depart they weep and frown: What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle? _30
6. I am the eye with which the Universe Beholds itself and knows itself divine; All harmony of instrument or verse, All prophecy, all medicine is mine, All light of art or nature;—to my song _35 Victory and praise in its own right belong.
NOTES: _32 itself divine]it is divine B. _34 is B.; are 1824. _36 its cj. Rossetti, 1870, B.; their 1824.
***
HYMN OF PAN.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]
1. From the forests and highlands We come, we come; From the river-girt islands, Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. _5 The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes, The cicale above in the lime, And the lizards below in the grass, _10 Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, Listening to my sweet pipings.
2. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing _15 The light of the dying day, Speeded by my sweet pipings. The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves, To the edge of the moist river-lawns, _20 And the brink of the dewy caves, And all that did then attend and follow, Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, With envy of my sweet pipings.
3. I sang of the dancing stars, _25 I sang of the daedal Earth, And of Heaven—and the giant wars, And Love, and Death, and Birth,— And then I changed my pipings,— Singing how down the vale of Maenalus _30 I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed. Gods and men, we are all deluded thus! It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: All wept, as I think both ye now would, If envy or age had not frozen your blood, _35 At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
NOTE: _5, _12 Listening to]Listening B.
***
THE QUESTION.
[Published by Leigh Hunt (with the signature Sigma) in “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1822. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Copies exist in the Harvard manuscript book, amongst the Boscombe manuscripts, and amongst Ollier manuscripts.]
1. I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay _5 Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
2. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, _10 The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets— Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth— Its mother’s face with Heaven’s collected tears, _15 When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
3. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; _20 And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
4. And nearer to the river’s trembling edge _25 There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white. And starry river buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; _30 And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
5. Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers _35 Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom? _40
NOTES: _14 Like...mirth Harvard manuscript, Boscombe manuscript; wanting in Ollier manuscript, 1822, 1824, 1839. _15 Heaven’s collected Harvard manuscript, Ollier manuscript, 1822; Heaven-collected 1824, 1839.
***
THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
FIRST SPIRIT: O thou, who plumed with strong desire Wouldst float above the earth, beware! A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire— Night is coming! Bright are the regions of the air, _5 And among the winds and beams It were delight to wander there— Night is coming!
SECOND SPIRIT: The deathless stars are bright above; If I would cross the shade of night, _10 Within my heart is the lamp of love, And that is day! And the moon will smile with gentle light On my golden plumes where’er they move; The meteors will linger round my flight, _15 And make night day.
FIRST SPIRIT: But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain; See, the bounds of the air are shaken— Night is coming! _20 The red swift clouds of the hurricane Yon declining sun have overtaken, The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain— Night is coming!
SECOND SPIRIT: I see the light, and I hear the sound; _25 I’ll sail on the flood of the tempest dark With the calm within and the light around Which makes night day: And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, _30 My moon-like flight thou then mayst mark On high, far away.
...
Some say there is a precipice Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin O’er piles of snow and chasms of ice _35 Mid Alpine mountains; And that the languid storm pursuing That winged shape, for ever flies Round those hoar branches, aye renewing Its aery fountains. _40
Some say when nights are dry and clear, And the death-dews sleep on the morass, Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, Which make night day: And a silver shape like his early love doth pass _45 Upborne by her wild and glittering hair, And when he awakes on the fragrant grass, He finds night day.
NOTES: _2 Wouldst 1839; Would 1824. _31 moon-like 1824; moonlight 1839. _44 make]makes 1824, 1839.
***
ODE TO NAPLES.
(The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
[Composed at San Juliano di Pisa, August 17-25, 1820; published in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy, ‘for the most part neat and legible,’ amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 14-18.]
EPODE 1a.
I stood within the City disinterred; And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless halls; _5 The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke— I felt, but heard not:—through white columns glowed The isle-sustaining ocean-flood, _10 A plane of light between two heavens of azure! Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure Were to spare Death, had never made erasure; But every living lineament was clear _15 As in the sculptor’s thought; and there The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine, Like winter leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow, Seemed only not to move and grow Because the crystal silence of the air _20 Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.
NOTE: _1 Pompeii.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
EPODE 2a.
Then gentle winds arose With many a mingled close Of wild Aeolian sound, and mountain-odours keen; _25 And where the Baian ocean Welters with airlike motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves, Even as the ever stormless atmosphere _30 Floats o’er the Elysian realm, It bore me, like an Angel, o’er the waves Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air No storm can overwhelm. I sailed, where ever flows _35 Under the calm Serene A spirit of deep emotion From the unknown graves Of the dead Kings of Melody. Shadowy Aornos darkened o’er the helm _40 The horizontal aether; Heaven stripped bare Its depth over Elysium, where the prow Made the invisible water white as snow; From that Typhaean mount, Inarime, There streamed a sunbright vapour, like the standard _45 Of some aethereal host; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate— They seize me—I must speak them!—be they fate! _50
NOTES: _25 odours B.; odour 1824. _42 depth B.; depths 1824. _45 sun-bright B.; sunlit 1824. _39 Homer and Virgil.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
STROPHE 1.
Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven! Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55 As sleep round Love, are driven! Metropolis of a ruined Paradise Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice Which armed Victory offers up unstained _60 To Love, the flower-enchained! Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,— Hail, hail, all hail! _65
STROPHE 2.
Thou youngest giant birth Which from the groaning earth Leap’st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale! Last of the Intercessors! Who ’gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70 Pleadest before God’s love! Arrayed in Wisdom’s mail, Wave thy lightning lance in mirth Nor let thy high heart fail, Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors With hurried legions move! _75 Hail, hail, all hail!
ANTISTROPHE 1a.
What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme Freedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80 A new Actaeon’s error Shall theirs have been—devoured by their own hounds! Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85 Aghast she pass from the Earth’s disk: Fear not, but gaze—for freemen mightier grow, And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:— If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail, Thou shalt be great—All hail! _90
ANTISTROPHE 2a.
From Freedom’s form divine, From Nature’s inmost shrine, Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil; O’er Ruin desolate, O’er Falsehood’s fallen state, _95 Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale! And equal laws be thine, And winged words let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne of God: That wealth, surviving fate, _100 Be thine.—All hail!
NOTE: _100 wealth-surviving cj. A.C. Bradley.
ANTISTROPHE 1b.
Didst thou not start to hear Spain’s thrilling paean From land to land re-echoed solemnly, Till silence became music? From the Aeaean To the cold Alps, eternal Italy _105 Starts to hear thine! The Sea Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs In light, and music; widowed Genoa wan By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, Murmuring, ‘Where is Doria?’ fair Milan, _110 Within whose veins long ran The viper’s palsying venom, lifts her heel To bruise his head. The signal and the seal (If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail) Art thou of all these hopes.—O hail! _115
NOTES: _104 Aeaea, the island of Circe.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.] _112 The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
ANTISTROPHE 2b.
Florence! beneath the sun, Of cities fairest one, Blushes within her bower for Freedom’s expectation: From eyes of quenchless hope Rome tears the priestly cope, _120 As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,— An athlete stripped to run From a remoter station For the high prize lost on Philippi’s shore:— As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, _125 So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail!
EPODE 1b.
Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms Arrayed against the ever-living Gods? The crash and darkness of a thousand storms Bursting their inaccessible abodes _130 Of crags and thunder-clouds? See ye the banners blazoned to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide _135 With iron light is dyed; The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions Like Chaos o’er creation, uncreating; An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions And lawless slaveries,—down the aereal regions _140 Of the white Alps, desolating, Famished wolves that bide no waiting, Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, Trampling our columned cities into dust, Their dull and savage lust _145 On Beauty’s corse to sickness satiating— They come! The fields they tread look black and hoary With fire—from their red feet the streams run gory!
EPODE 2b.
Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move _150 All things which live and are, within the Italian shore; Who spreadest Heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; Who sittest in thy star, o’er Ocean’s western floor; Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command _155 The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison From the Earth’s bosom chill; Oh, bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison! Bid the Earth’s plenty kill! _160 Bid thy bright Heaven above, Whilst light and darkness bound it, Be their tomb who planned To make it ours and thine! Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill _165 And raise thy sons, as o’er the prone horizon Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire— Be man’s high hope and unextinct desire The instrument to work thy will divine! Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, _170 And frowns and fears from thee, Would not more swiftly flee Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.— Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine Thou yieldest or withholdest, oh, let be _175 This city of thy worship ever free!
NOTES: _143 old 1824; lost B. _147 black 1824; blue B.
***
AUTUMN: A DIRGE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the Year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. _5 Come, Months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold Year, _10 And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
2. The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling, The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling For the Year; The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone _15 To his dwelling; Come, Months, come away; Put on white, black, and gray; Let your light sisters play— Ye, follow the bier _20 Of the dead cold Year, And make her grave green with tear on tear.
***
THE WANING MOON.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
And like a dying lady, lean and pale, Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil, Out of her chamber, led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain, The moon arose up in the murky East, _5 A white and shapeless mass—
***
TO THE MOON.
[Published (1) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, (2) by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
1. Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth,— And ever changing, like a joyless eye _5 That finds no object worth its constancy?
2. Thou chosen sister of the Spirit, That grazes on thee till in thee it pities...
***
DEATH.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death—and we are death.
2. Death has set his mark and seal _5 On all we are and all we feel, On all we know and all we fear,
...
3. First our pleasures die—and then Our hopes, and then our fears—and when These are dead, the debt is due, _10 Dust claims dust—and we die too.
4. All things that we love and cherish, Like ourselves must fade and perish; Such is our rude mortal lot— Love itself would, did they not. _15
***
LIBERTY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. The fiery mountains answer each other; Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; The tempestuous oceans awake one another, And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter’s throne, When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. _5
2. From a single cloud the lightening flashes, Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around, Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound Is bellowing underground. _10
3. But keener thy gaze than the lightening’s glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake’s tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun’s bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp. _15
4. From billow and mountain and exhalation The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast; From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,— And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night _20 In the van of the morning light.
NOTE: _4 zone editions 1824, 1839; throne later editions.
***
SUMMER AND WINTER.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting.]
It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, Towards the end of the sunny month of June, When the north wind congregates in crowds The floating mountains of the silver clouds From the horizon—and the stainless sky _5 Opens beyond them like eternity. All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds, The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds; The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, And the firm foliage of the larger trees. _10
It was a winter such as when birds die In the deep forests; and the fishes lie Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when, _15 Among their children, comfortable men Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold: Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!
NOTE: _11 birds die 1839; birds do die 1829.
***
THE TOWER OF FAMINE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting.]
Amid the desolation of a city, Which was the cradle, and is now the grave Of an extinguished people,—so that Pity
Weeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave, There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built _5 Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt, Agitates the light flame of their hours, Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.
There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers _10 And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof, The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
Of solitary wealth,—the tempest-proof Pavilions of the dark Italian air,— Are by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof, _15
And are withdrawn—so that the world is bare; As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror Amid a company of ladies fair
Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue, _20 The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error, Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.
NOTE: _7 For]With 1829.
***
AN ALLEGORY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. A portal as of shadowy adamant Stands yawning on the highway of the life Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt; Around it rages an unceasing strife Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt _5 The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.
2. And many pass it by with careless tread, Not knowing that a shadowy ... Tracks every traveller even to where the dead _10 Wait peacefully for their companion new; But others, by more curious humour led, Pause to examine;—these are very few, And they learn little there, except to know That shadows follow them where’er they go. _15
NOTE: _8 pass Rossetti; passed editions 1824, 1839.
***
THE WORLD’S WANDERERS.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night Will thy pinions close now?
2. Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray _5 Pilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way, In what depth of night or day Seekest thou repose now?
3. Weary Wind, who wanderest Like the world’s rejected guest, _10 Hast thou still some secret nest On the tree or billow?
***
SONNET.
[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. There is a transcript amongst the Ollier manuscripts, and another in the Harvard manuscript book.]
Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there, Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes Of the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear? O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess All that pale Expectation feigneth fair! _5 Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go, And all that never yet was known would know— Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press, With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path, _10 Seeking, alike from happiness and woe, A refuge in the cavern of gray death? O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?
NOTE: _1 grave Ollier manuscript; dead Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839. _5 pale Expectation Ollier manuscript; anticipation Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839. _7 must Harvard manuscript, 1823; mayst 1824; mayest editions 1839. _8 all that Harvard manuscript, 1823; that which editions 1824, 1839. would Harvard manuscript, 1823; wouldst editions 1839.
***
LINES TO A REVIEWER.
[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. These lines, and the “Sonnet” immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the “Literary Pocket-Book”.]
Alas, good friend, what profit can you see In hating such a hateless thing as me? There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side: in vain would you assuage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, _5 In which not even contempt lurks to beguile Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate. Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate! For to your passion I am far more coy Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy _10 In winter noon. Of your antipathy If I am the Narcissus, you are free To pine into a sound with hating me.
NOTE: _3 where editions 1824, 1839; when 1823.
***
FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE.
[Published by Edward Dowden, “Correspondence of Robert Southey and Caroline Bowles”, 1880.]
If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains, And racks of subtle torture, if the pains Of shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave, Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave, Hurling the damned into the murky air _5 While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error, Are the true secrets of the commonweal To make men wise and just;... _10 And not the sophisms of revenge and fear, Bloodier than is revenge... Then send the priests to every hearth and home To preach the burning wrath which is to come, In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw _15 The frozen tears... If Satire’s scourge could wake the slumbering hounds Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds, The leprous scars of callous Infamy; If it could make the present not to be, _20 Or charm the dark past never to have been, Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen What Southey is and was, would not exclaim, ‘Lash on!’ ... be the keen verse dipped in flame; Follow his flight with winged words, and urge _25 The strokes of the inexorable scourge Until the heart be naked, till his soul See the contagion’s spots ... foul; And from the mirror of Truth’s sunlike shield, From which his Parthian arrow... _30 Flash on his sight the spectres of the past, Until his mind’s eye paint thereon— Let scorn like ... yawn below, And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow. This cannot be, it ought not, evil still— _35 Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill. Rough words beget sad thoughts, ... and, beside, Men take a sullen and a stupid pride In being all they hate in others’ shame, By a perverse antipathy of fame. _40 ’Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow These bitter waters; I will only say, If any friend would take Southey some day, And tell him, in a country walk alone, _45 Softening harsh words with friendship’s gentle tone, How incorrect his public conduct is, And what men think of it, ’twere not amiss. Far better than to make innocent ink—
***
GOOD-NIGHT.
[Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1822. It is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and there is a transcript by Shelley in a copy of “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. (See “Love’s Philosophy” and “Time Long Past”.) Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard manuscript and “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey manuscript, 1820, are given in the footnotes.]
1. Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill Which severs those it should unite; Let us remain together still, Then it will be GOOD night.
2. How can I call the lone night good, _5 Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight? Be it not said, thought, understood— Then it will be—GOOD night.
3. To hearts which near each other move From evening close to morning light, _10 The night is good; because, my love, They never SAY good-night.
NOTES: _1 Good-night? no, love! the night is ill Stacey manuscript. _5 How were the night without thee good Stacey manuscript. _9 The hearts that on each other beat Stacey manuscript. _11 Have nights as good as they are sweet Stacey manuscript. _12 But never SAY good night Stacey manuscript.
***
BUONA NOTTE.
[Published by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales, or Days and Nights of Sportsmen”, 1834. The text is revised by Rossetti from the Boscombe manuscript.]
1. ‘Buona notte, buona notte!’—Come mai La notte sara buona senza te? Non dirmi buona notte,—che tu sai, La notte sa star buona da per se.
2. Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, _5 La notte quando Lilla m’abbandona; Pei cuori chi si batton insieme Ogni notte, senza dirla, sara buona.
3. Come male buona notte ci suona Con sospiri e parole interrotte!— _10 Il modo di aver la notte buona E mai non di dir la buona notte.
NOTES: _2 sara]sia 1834. _4 buona]bene 1834. _9 Come]Quanto 1834.
***
ORPHEUS.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
A: Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill, Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold A dark and barren field, through which there flows, Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream, Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon _5 Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there. Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook Until you pause beside a darksome pond, The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night _10 That lives beneath the overhanging rock That shades the pool—an endless spring of gloom, Upon whose edge hovers the tender light, Trembling to mingle with its paramour,— But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day, _15 Or, with most sullen and regardless hate, Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace. On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill There is a cave, from which there eddies up A pale mist, like aereal gossamer, _20 Whose breath destroys all life—awhile it veils The rock—then, scattered by the wind, it flies Along the stream, or lingers on the clefts, Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there. Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock _25 There stands a group of cypresses; not such As, with a graceful spire and stirring life, Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale, Whose branches the air plays among, but not Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace; _30 But blasted and all wearily they stand, One to another clinging; their weak boughs Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake Beneath its blasts—a weatherbeaten crew!
CHORUS: What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint, _35 But more melodious than the murmuring wind Which through the columns of a temple glides?
A: It is the wandering voice of Orpheus’ lyre, Borne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king Hurries them fast from these air-feeding notes; _40 But in their speed they bear along with them The waning sound, scattering it like dew Upon the startled sense.
CHORUS: Does he still sing? Methought he rashly cast away his harp When he had lost Eurydice.
A: Ah, no! _45 Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag A moment shudders on the fearful brink Of a swift stream—the cruel hounds press on With deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound,— He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn _50 By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief, Maenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air, And wildly shrieked ‘Where she is, it is dark!’ And then he struck from forth the strings a sound Of deep and fearful melody. Alas! _55 In times long past, when fair Eurydice With her bright eyes sat listening by his side, He gently sang of high and heavenly themes. As in a brook, fretted with little waves By the light airs of spring—each riplet makes _60 A many-sided mirror for the sun, While it flows musically through green banks, Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh, So flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy And tender love that fed those sweetest notes, _65 The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food. But that is past. Returning from drear Hell, He chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone, Blackened with lichens, on a herbless plain. Then from the deep and overflowing spring _70 Of his eternal ever-moving grief There rose to Heaven a sound of angry song. ’Tis as a mighty cataract that parts Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong, _75 And casts itself with horrid roar and din Adown a steep; from a perennial source It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar, And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light. _80 Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief Is clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words Of poesy. Unlike all human works, It never slackens, and through every change Wisdom and beauty and the power divine _85 Of mighty poesy together dwell, Mingling in sweet accord. As I have seen A fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky, Driving along a rack of winged clouds, Which may not pause, but ever hurry on, _90 As their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars, Twinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes. Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers, Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon _95 Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk, Rising all bright behind the eastern hills. I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not Of song; but, would I echo his high song, Nature must lend me words ne’er used before, _100 Or I must borrow from her perfect works, To picture forth his perfect attributes. He does no longer sit upon his throne Of rock upon a desert herbless plain, For the evergreen and knotted ilexes, _105 And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs, And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit, And elms dragging along the twisted vines, Which drop their berries as they follow fast, And blackthorn bushes with their infant race _110 Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear, And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow, As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit, Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself Has sent from her maternal breast a growth _115 Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet, To pave the temple that his poesy Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch, And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair. Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. _120 The birds are silent, hanging down their heads, Perched on the lowest branches of the trees; Not even the nightingale intrudes a note In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.
NOTES: _16, _17, _24 1870 only. _45-_55 Ah, no!... melody 1870 only. _66 1870 only. _112 trees 1870; too 1862. _113 huge 1870; long 1862. _116 starlike 1870; starry 1862. odour 1862; odours 1870.
***
FIORDISPINA.
[Published in part (lines 11-30) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; in full (from the Boscombe manuscript) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
The season was the childhood of sweet June, Whose sunny hours from morning until noon Went creeping through the day with silent feet, Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet; Like the long years of blest Eternity _5 Never to be developed. Joy to thee, Fiordispina and thy Cosimo, For thou the wonders of the depth canst know Of this unfathomable flood of hours, Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers— _10
...
They were two cousins, almost like to twins, Except that from the catalogue of sins Nature had rased their love—which could not be But by dissevering their nativity. And so they grew together like two flowers _15 Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers Lull or awaken in their purple prime, Which the same hand will gather—the same clime Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see All those who love—and who e’er loved like thee, _20 Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo, Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow The ardours of a vision which obscure The very idol of its portraiture. He faints, dissolved into a sea of love; _25 But thou art as a planet sphered above; But thou art Love itself—ruling the motion Of his subjected spirit: such emotion Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May Had not brought forth this morn—your wedding-day. _30
...
‘Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew, Ye faint-eyed children of the ... Hours,’ Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers Which she had from the breathing—
...
A table near of polished porphyry. _35 They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye That looked on them—a fragrance from the touch Whose warmth ... checked their life; a light such As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove _40 The childish pity that she felt for them, And a ... remorse that from their stem She had divided such fair shapes ... made A feeling in the ... which was a shade Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay _45 All gems that make the earth’s dark bosom gay. ... rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms, And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes The livery of unremembered snow— Violets whose eyes have drunk— _50
...
Fiordispina and her nurse are now Upon the steps of the high portico, Under the withered arm of Media She flings her glowing arm
...
... step by step and stair by stair, _55 That withered woman, gray and white and brown— More like a trunk by lichens overgrown Than anything which once could have been human. And ever as she goes the palsied woman
...
‘How slow and painfully you seem to walk, _60 Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.’ ‘And well it may, Fiordispina, dearest—well-a-day! You are hastening to a marriage-bed; I to the grave!’—‘And if my love were dead, _65 Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie Beside him in my shroud as willingly As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.’ ‘Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought Not be remembered till it snows in June; _70 Such fancies are a music out of tune With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night. What! would you take all beauty and delight Back to the Paradise from which you sprung, And leave to grosser mortals?— _75 And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet And subtle mystery by which spirits meet? Who knows whether the loving game is played, When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed, The naked soul goes wandering here and there _80 Through the wide deserts of Elysian air? The violet dies not till it’—
NOTES: _11 to 1824; two editions 1839. _20 e’er 1862; ever editions 1824, 1839. _25 sea edition 1862; sense editions 1824, 1839.
***
TIME LONG PAST.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. This is one of three poems (cf. “Love’s Philosophy” and “Good-Night”) transcribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book” for 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]
1. Like the ghost of a dear friend dead Is Time long past. A tone which is now forever fled, A hope which is now forever past, A love so sweet it could not last, _5 Was Time long past.
2. There were sweet dreams in the night Of Time long past: And, was it sadness or delight, Each day a shadow onward cast _10 Which made us wish it yet might last— That Time long past.
3. There is regret, almost remorse, For Time long past. ’Tis like a child’s beloved corse _15 A father watches, till at last Beauty is like remembrance, cast From Time long past.
***
FRAGMENT: THE DESERTS OF DIM SLEEP.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
I went into the deserts of dim sleep— That world which, like an unknown wilderness, Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep—
***
FRAGMENT: ‘THE VIEWLESS AND INVISIBLE CONSEQUENCE’.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
The viewless and invisible Consequence Watches thy goings-out, and comings-in, And...hovers o’er thy guilty sleep, Unveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts More ghastly than those deeds— _5
***
FRAGMENT: A SERPENT-FACE.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
His face was like a snake’s—wrinkled and loose And withered—
***
FRAGMENT: DEATH IN LIFE.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
My head is heavy, my limbs are weary, And it is not life that makes me move.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘SUCH HOPE, AS IS THE SICK DESPAIR OF GOOD’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Such hope, as is the sick despair of good, Such fear, as is the certainty of ill, Such doubt, as is pale Expectation’s food Turned while she tastes to poison, when the will Is powerless, and the spirit... _5
***
FRAGMENT: ‘ALAS! THIS IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT LIFE WAS’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is joined by Forman with that immediately preceding.]
Alas! this is not what I thought life was. I knew that there were crimes and evil men, Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen. In mine own heart I saw as in a glass _5 The hearts of others ... And when I went among my kind, with triple brass Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed, To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!
***
FRAGMENT: MILTON’S SPIRIT.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
I dreamed that Milton’s spirit rose, and took From life’s green tree his Uranian lute; And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook All human things built in contempt of man,— And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked, _5 Prisons and citadels...
NOTE: _2 lute Uranian cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun, To rise upon our darkness, if the star Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war With thy young brightness! _5
***
FRAGMENT: PATER OMNIPOTENS.
[Edited from manuscript Shelley E 4 in the Bodleian Library, and published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination” etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903. Here placed conjecturally amongst the compositions of 1820, but of uncertain date, and belonging possibly to 1819 or a still earlier year.]
Serene in his unconquerable might Endued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne Encompassed unapproachably with power And darkness and deep solitude an awe Stood like a black cloud on some aery cliff _5 Embosoming its lightning—in his sight Unnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood Like slaves before their Lord—prostrate around Heaven’s multitudes hymned everlasting praise.
***
FRAGMENT: TO THE MIND OF MAN.
[Edited, published and here placed as the preceding.]
Thou living light that in thy rainbow hues Clothest this naked world; and over Sea And Earth and air, and all the shapes that be In peopled darkness of this wondrous world The Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse _5 ... truth ... thou Vital Flame Mysterious thought that in this mortal frame Of things, with unextinguished lustre burnest Now pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled That eer as thou dost languish still returnest _10 And ever Before the ... before the Pyramids
So soon as from the Earth formless and rude One living step had chased drear Solitude Thou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids _15 Of the vast snake Eternity, who kept The tree of good and evil.—
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1820, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
We spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on its ancient works of art. His thoughts were a good deal taken up also by the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to ply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of money. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly disappointed when it was thrown aside.
There was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his health, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we left it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we had some friends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vacca as to the cause of Shelley’s sufferings. He, like every other medical man, could only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he enjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave his complaint to Nature. As he had vainly consulted medical men of the highest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this advice. Pain and ill-health followed him to the end; but the residence at Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence we remained.
In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house, which was hers: he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity. As a favourite friend of my father, we had sought her with eagerness; and the most open and cordial friendship was established between us.
Our stay at the Baths of San Giuliano was shortened by an accident. At the foot of our garden ran the canal that communicated between the Serchio and the Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks, and, breaking its bounds, this canal also overflowed; all this part of the country is below the level of its rivers, and the consequence was that it was speedily flooded. The rising waters filled the Square of the Baths, in the lower part of which our house was situated. The canal overflowed in the garden behind; the rising waters on either side at last burst open the doors, and, meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet. It was a picturesque sight at night to see the peasants driving the cattle from the plains below to the hills above the Baths. A fire was kept up to guide them across the ford; and the forms of the men and the animals showed in dark relief against the red glare of the flame, which was reflected again in the waters that filled the Square.
We then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter. The extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude was enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends. Chance cast us strangely enough on this quiet half-unpeopled town; but its very peace suited Shelley. Its river, the near mountains, and not distant sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many delightful excursions. We feared the south of Italy, and a hotter climate, on account of our child; our former bereavement inspiring us with terror. We seemed to take root here, and moved little afterwards; often, indeed, entertaining projects for visiting other parts of Italy, but still delaying. But for our fears on account of our child, I believe we should have wandered over the world, both being passionately fond of travelling. But human life, besides its great unalterable necessities, is ruled by a thousand lilliputian ties that shackle at the time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for their influence over our destiny.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821.
DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated January 1, 1821.]
1. Orphan Hours, the Year is dead, Come and sigh, come and weep! Merry Hours, smile instead, For the Year is but asleep. See, it smiles as it is sleeping, _5 Mocking your untimely weeping.
2. As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So White Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the death-cold Year to-day; _10 Solemn Hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.
3. As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days _15 Rocks the Year:—be calm and mild, Trembling Hours, she will arise With new love within her eyes.
4. January gray is here, Like a sexton by her grave; _20 February bears the bier, March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps—but, O ye Hours! Follow with May’s fairest flowers.
***
TO NIGHT.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript book.]
1. Swiftly walk o’er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, _5 ‘Which make thee terrible and dear,— Swift be thy flight!
2. Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Star-inwrought! Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; _10 Kiss her until she be wearied out, Then wander o’er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wand— Come, long-sought!
3. When I arose and saw the dawn, _15 I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee. _20
4. Thy brother Death came, and cried, Wouldst thou me? Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noontide bee, _25 Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me?—And I replied, No, not thee!
5. Death will come when thou art dead, Soon, too soon— _30 Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved Night— Swift be thine approaching flight, Come soon, soon! _35
NOTE: _1 o’er Harvard manuscript; over editions 1824, 1839.
***
TIME.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality, _5 And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea? _10
***
LINES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. Far, far away, O ye Halcyons of Memory, Seek some far calmer nest Than this abandoned breast! No news of your false spring _5 To my heart’s winter bring, Once having gone, in vain Ye come again.
2. Vultures, who build your bowers High in the Future’s towers, _10 Withered hopes on hopes are spread! Dying joys, choked by the dead, Will serve your beaks for prey Many a day.
***
FROM THE ARABIC: AN IMITATION.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is an intermediate draft amongst the Bodleian manuscripts. See Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 13.]
1. My faint spirit was sitting in the light Of thy looks, my love; It panted for thee like the hind at noon For the brooks, my love. Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight _5 Bore thee far from me; My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, Did companion thee.
2. Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed Or the death they bear, _10 The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove With the wings of care; In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, Shall mine cling to thee, Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, _15 It may bring to thee.
NOTES: _3 hoofs]feet B. _7 were]grew B. _9 Ah!]O B.
***
TO EMILIA VIVIANI.
[Published, (1) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; (2, 1) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; (2, 2 and 3) by H. Buxton Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]
1. Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me Sweet-basil and mignonette? Embleming love and health, which never yet In the same wreath might be. Alas, and they are wet! _5 Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? For never rain or dew Such fragrance drew From plant or flower—the very doubt endears My sadness ever new, _10 The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.
2. Send the stars light, but send not love to me, In whom love ever made Health like a heap of embers soon to fade—
***
THE FUGITIVES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”. 1824.]
1. The waters are flashing, The white hail is dashing, The lightnings are glancing, The hoar-spray is dancing— Away! _5
The whirlwind is rolling, The thunder is tolling, The forest is swinging, The minster bells ringing— Come away! _10
The Earth is like Ocean, Wreck-strewn and in motion: Bird, beast, man and worm Have crept out of the storm— Come away! _15
2. ‘Our boat has one sail And the helmsman is pale;— A bold pilot I trow, Who should follow us now,’— Shouted he— _20
And she cried: ‘Ply the oar! Put off gaily from shore!’— As she spoke, bolts of death Mixed with hail, specked their path O’er the sea. _25
And from isle, tower and rock, The blue beacon-cloud broke, And though dumb in the blast, The red cannon flashed fast From the lee. _30
3. And ‘Fear’st thou?’ and ‘Fear’st thou?’ And Seest thou?’ and ‘Hear’st thou?’ And ‘Drive we not free O’er the terrible sea, I and thou?’ _35
One boat-cloak did cover The loved and the lover— Their blood beats one measure, They murmur proud pleasure Soft and low;— _40
While around the lashed Ocean, Like mountains in motion, Is withdrawn and uplifted, Sunk, shattered and shifted To and fro. _45
4. In the court of the fortress Beside the pale portress, Like a bloodhound well beaten The bridegroom stands, eaten By shame; _50
On the topmost watch-turret, As a death-boding spirit Stands the gray tyrant father, To his voice the mad weather Seems tame; _55
And with curses as wild As e’er clung to child, He devotes to the blast, The best, loveliest and last Of his name! _60
NOTES: _28 And though]Though editions 1839. _57 clung]cling editions 1839.
***
TO —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory— Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, _5 Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.
***
SONG.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript book.]
1. Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight! Wherefore hast thou left me now Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day _5 ’Tis since thou art fled away.
2. How shall ever one like me Win thee back again? With the joyous and the free Thou wilt scoff at pain. _10 Spirit false! thou hast forgot All but those who need thee not.
3. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Thou with sorrow art dismayed; _15 Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not near, And reproach thou wilt not hear.
4. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; _20 Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
5. I love all that thou lovest, _25 Spirit of Delight! The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed, And the starry night; Autumn evening, and the morn When the golden mists are born. _30
6. I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost; I love waves, and winds, and storms, Everything almost Which is Nature’s, and may be _35 Untainted by man’s misery.
7. I love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise, and good Between thee and me _40 What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less.
8. I love Love—though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, _45 Spirit, I love thee— Thou art love and life! Oh, come, Make once more my heart thy home.
***
MUTABILITY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]
1. The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world’s delight? _5 Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright.
2. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss _10 For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call.
3. Whilst skies are blue and bright, _15 Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou—and from thy sleep _20 Then wake to weep.
NOTES: _9 how Boscombe manuscript; too editions 1824, 1839. _12 though soon they fall]though soon we or so soon they cj. Rossetti.
***
LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.
[Published with “Hellas”, 1821.]
What! alive and so bold, O Earth? Art thou not overbold? What! leapest thou forth as of old In the light of thy morning mirth, The last of the flock of the starry fold? _5 Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?
How! is not thy quick heart cold? What spark is alive on thy hearth? _10 How! is not HIS death-knell knolled? And livest THOU still, Mother Earth? Thou wert warming thy fingers old O’er the embers covered and cold Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled— _15 What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?
‘Who has known me of old,’ replied Earth, ‘Or who has my story told? It is thou who art overbold.’ And the lightning of scorn laughed forth _20 As she sung, ‘To my bosom I fold All my sons when their knell is knolled, And so with living motion all are fed, And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.
‘Still alive and still bold,’ shouted Earth, _25 ‘I grow bolder and still more bold. The dead fill me ten thousandfold Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth. I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold, Like a frozen chaos uprolled, _30 Till by the spirit of the mighty dead My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.
‘Ay, alive and still bold.’ muttered Earth, ‘Napoleon’s fierce spirit rolled, In terror and blood and gold, _35 A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. Leave the millions who follow to mould The metal before it be cold; And weave into his shame, which like the dead Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.’ _40
***
SONNET: POLITICAL GREATNESS.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a transcript, headed “Sonnet to the Republic of Benevento”, in the Harvard manuscript book.]
Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame; Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, History is but the shadow of their shame, _5 Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts As to oblivion their blind millions fleet, Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit By force or custom? Man who man would be, _10 Must rule the empire of himself; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
***
THE AZIOLA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829.]
1. ‘Do you not hear the Aziola cry? Methinks she must be nigh,’ Said Mary, as we sate In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought; And I, who thought _5 This Aziola was some tedious woman, Asked, ‘Who is Aziola?’ How elate I felt to know that it was nothing human, No mockery of myself to fear or hate: And Mary saw my soul, _10 And laughed, and said, ‘Disquiet yourself not; ’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
2. Sad Aziola! many an eventide Thy music I had heard By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side, _15 And fields and marshes wide,— Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, The soul ever stirred; Unlike and far sweeter than them all. Sad Aziola! from that moment I _20 Loved thee and thy sad cry.
NOTES: _4 ere stars]ere the stars editions 1839. _9 or]and editions 1839. _19 them]they editions 1839.
***
A LAMENT.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime? No more—Oh, never more! _5
2. Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more—Oh, never more! _10
***
REMEMBRANCE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is entitled “A Lament”. Three manuscript copies are extant: The Trelawny manuscript (“Remembrance”), the Harvard manuscript (“Song”) and the Houghton manuscript—the last written by Shelley on a flyleaf of a copy of “Adonais”.]
1. Swifter far than summer’s flight— Swifter far than youth’s delight— Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone— As the earth when leaves are dead, _5 As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left lone, alone.
2. The swallow summer comes again— The owlet night resumes her reign— _10 But the wild-swan youth is fain To fly with thee, false as thou.— My heart each day desires the morrow; Sleep itself is turned to sorrow; Vainly would my winter borrow _15 Sunny leaves from any bough.
3. Lilies for a bridal bed— Roses for a matron’s head— Violets for a maiden dead— Pansies let MY flowers be: _20 On the living grave I bear Scatter them without a tear— Let no friend, however dear, Waste one hope, one fear for me.
NOTES: _5-_7 So editions 1824, 1839, Trelawny manuscript, Harvard manuscript; As the wood when leaves are shed, As the night when sleep is fled, As the heart when joy is dead Houghton manuscript. _13 So editions 1824, 1839, Harvard manuscript, Houghton manuscript. My heart to-day desires to-morrow Trelawny manuscript. _20 So editions 1824, 1839, Harvard manuscript, Houghton manuscript. Sadder flowers find for me Trelawny manuscript. _24 one hope, one fear]a hope, a fear Trelawny manuscript.
***
TO EDWARD WILLIAMS.
[Published in Ascham’s edition of the “Poems”, 1834. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]
1. The serpent is shut out from Paradise. The wounded deer must seek the herb no more In which its heart-cure lies: The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs _5 Fled in the April hour. I too must seldom seek again Near happy friends a mitigated pain.
2. Of hatred I am proud,—with scorn content; Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown _10 Itself indifferent; But, not to speak of love, pity alone Can break a spirit already more than bent. The miserable one Turns the mind’s poison into food,— _15 Its medicine is tears,—its evil good.
3. Therefore, if now I see you seldomer, Dear friends, dear FRIEND! know that I only fly Your looks, because they stir Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die: _20 The very comfort that they minister I scarce can bear, yet I, So deeply is the arrow gone, Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.
4. When I return to my cold home, you ask _25 Why I am not as I have ever been. YOU spoil me for the task Of acting a forced part in life’s dull scene,— Of wearing on my brow the idle mask Of author, great or mean, _30 In the world’s carnival. I sought Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.
5. Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot With various flowers, and every one still said, ‘She loves me—loves me not.’ _35 And if this meant a vision long since fled— If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought— If it meant,—but I dread To speak what you may know too well: Still there was truth in the sad oracle. _40
6. The crane o’er seas and forests seeks her home; No bird so wild but has its quiet nest, When it no more would roam; The sleepless billows on the ocean’s breast Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam, _45 And thus at length find rest: Doubtless there is a place of peace Where MY weak heart and all its throbs will cease.
7. I asked her, yesterday, if she believed That I had resolution. One who HAD _50 Would ne’er have thus relieved His heart with words,—but what his judgement bade Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. These verses are too sad To send to you, but that I know, _55 Happy yourself, you feel another’s woe.
NOTES: _10 Indifference, which once hurt me, is now grown Trelawny manuscript. _18 Dear friends, dear friend Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; Dear gentle friend 1834, 1839, 1st edition. _26 ever]lately Trelawny manuscript. _28 in Trelawny manuscript; on 1834, editions 1839, _43 When 1839, 2nd edition; Whence 1834, 1839, 1st edition. _48 will 1839, 2nd edition; shall 1834, 1839, 1st edition. _53 unrelieved Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd. edition; unreprieved 1834, 1839, 1st edition. _54 are]were Trelawny manuscript.
***
TO —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair _5 For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.
2. I can give not what men call love, But wilt thou accept not _10 The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not,— The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar _15 From the sphere of our sorrow?
***
TO —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a Boscombe manuscript.]
1. When passion’s trance is overpast, If tenderness and truth could last, Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, I should not weep, I should not weep! _5
2. It were enough to feel, to see, Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, And dream the rest—and burn and be The secret food of fires unseen, Couldst thou but be as thou hast been, _10
3. After the slumber of the year The woodland violets reappear; All things revive in field or grove, And sky and sea, but two, which move And form all others, life and love. _15
NOTE: _15 form Boscombe manuscript; for editions 1824, 1839.
***
A BRIDAL SONG.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. The golden gates of Sleep unbar Where Strength and Beauty, met together, Kindle their image like a star In a sea of glassy weather! Night, with all thy stars look down,— _5 Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,— Never smiled the inconstant moon On a pair so true. Let eyes not see their own delight;— Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight _10 Oft renew.
2. Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her! Holy stars, permit no wrong! And return to wake the sleeper, Dawn,—ere it be long! _15 O joy! O fear! what will be done In the absence of the sun! Come along!
***
EPITHALAMIUM.
ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PRECEDING.
[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847.]
Night, with all thine eyes look down! Darkness shed its holiest dew! When ever smiled the inconstant moon On a pair so true? Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light, _5 Lest eyes see their own delight! Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight Oft renew.
BOYS: O joy! O fear! what may be done In the absence of the sun? _10 Come along! The golden gates of sleep unbar! When strength and beauty meet together, Kindles their image like a star In a sea of glassy weather. _15 Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light, Lest eyes see their own delight! Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight Oft renew.
GIRLS: O joy! O fear! what may be done _20 In the absence of the sun? Come along! Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep her! Holiest powers, permit no wrong! And return, to wake the sleeper, _25 Dawn, ere it be long. Hence, swift hour! and quench thy light, Lest eyes see their own delight! Hence, coy hour! and thy loved flight Oft renew. _30
BOYS AND GIRLS: O joy! O fear! what will be done In the absence of the sun? Come along!
NOTE: _17 Lest]Let 1847.
***
ANOTHER VERSION OF THE SAME.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870, from the Trelawny manuscript of Edward Williams’s play, “The Promise: or, A Year, a Month, and a Day”.]
BOYS SING: Night! with all thine eyes look down! Darkness! weep thy holiest dew! Never smiled the inconstant moon On a pair so true. Haste, coy hour! and quench all light, _5 Lest eyes see their own delight! Haste, swift hour! and thy loved flight Oft renew!
GIRLS SING: Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her! Holy stars! permit no wrong! _10 And return, to wake the sleeper, Dawn, ere it be long! O joy! O fear! there is not one Of us can guess what may be done In the absence of the sun:— _15 Come along!
BOYS: Oh! linger long, thou envious eastern lamp In the damp Caves of the deep!
GIRLS: Nay, return, Vesper! urge thy lazy car! _20 Swift unbar The gates of Sleep!
CHORUS: The golden gate of Sleep unbar, When Strength and Beauty, met together, Kindle their image, like a star _25 In a sea of glassy weather. May the purple mist of love Round them rise, and with them move, Nourishing each tender gem Which, like flowers, will burst from them. _30 As the fruit is to the tree May their children ever be!
***
LOVE, HOPE, DESIRE, AND FEAR.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. ‘A very free translation of Brunetto Latini’s “Tesoretto”, lines 81-154.’—A.C. Bradley.]
...
And many there were hurt by that strong boy, His name, they said, was Pleasure, And near him stood, glorious beyond measure Four Ladies who possess all empery In earth and air and sea, _5 Nothing that lives from their award is free. Their names will I declare to thee, Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear, And they the regents are Of the four elements that frame the heart, _10 And each diversely exercised her art By force or circumstance or sleight To prove her dreadful might Upon that poor domain. Desire presented her [false] glass, and then _15 The spirit dwelling there Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair Within that magic mirror, And dazed by that bright error, It would have scorned the [shafts] of the avenger _20 And death, and penitence, and danger, Had not then silent Fear Touched with her palsying spear, So that as if a frozen torrent The blood was curdled in its current; _25 It dared not speak, even in look or motion, But chained within itself its proud devotion. Between Desire and Fear thou wert A wretched thing, poor heart! Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast, _30 Wild bird for that weak nest. Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought, And from the very wound of tender thought Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies, _35 Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow. Then Hope approached, she who can borrow For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow, And Fear withdrew, as night when day Descends upon the orient ray, _40 And after long and vain endurance The poor heart woke to her assurance. —At one birth these four were born With the world’s forgotten morn, And from Pleasure still they hold _45 All it circles, as of old. When, as summer lures the swallow, Pleasure lures the heart to follow— O weak heart of little wit! The fair hand that wounded it, _50 Seeking, like a panting hare, Refuge in the lynx’s lair, Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear, Ever will be near.
***
FRAGMENTS WRITTEN FOR HELLAS.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
1. Fairest of the Destinies, Disarray thy dazzling eyes: Keener far thy lightnings are Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest, And the smile thou wearest _5 Wraps thee as a star Is wrapped in light.
2. Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run, Or could the morning shafts of purest light _10 Again into the quivers of the Sun Be gathered—could one thought from its wild flight Return into the temple of the brain Without a change, without a stain,— Could aught that is, ever again _15 Be what it once has ceased to be, Greece might again be free!
3. A star has fallen upon the earth Mid the benighted nations, A quenchless atom of immortal light, _20 A living spark of Night, A cresset shaken from the constellations. Swifter than the thunder fell To the heart of Earth, the well Where its pulses flow and beat, _25 And unextinct in that cold source Burns, and on ... course Guides the sphere which is its prison, Like an angelic spirit pent In a form of mortal birth, _30 Till, as a spirit half-arisen Shatters its charnel, it has rent, In the rapture of its mirth, The thin and painted garment of the Earth, Ruining its chaos—a fierce breath _35 Consuming all its forms of living death.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘I WOULD NOT BE A KING’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
I would not be a king—enough Of woe it is to love; The path to power is steep and rough, And tempests reign above. I would not climb the imperial throne; _5 ’Tis built on ice which fortune’s sun Thaws in the height of noon. Then farewell, king, yet were I one, Care would not come so soon. Would he and I were far away _10 Keeping flocks on Himalay!
***
GINEVRA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated ‘Pisa, 1821.’]
Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one Who staggers forth into the air and sun From the dark chamber of a mortal fever, Bewildered, and incapable, and ever Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain _5 Of usual shapes, till the familiar train Of objects and of persons passed like things Strange as a dreamer’s mad imaginings, Ginevra from the nuptial altar went; The vows to which her lips had sworn assent _10 Rung in her brain still with a jarring din, Deafening the lost intelligence within.
And so she moved under the bridal veil, Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale, And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, _15 And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,— And of the gold and jewels glittering there She scarce felt conscious,—but the weary glare Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light, Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight, _20 A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud Was less heavenly fair—her face was bowed, And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair Were mirrored in the polished marble stair Which led from the cathedral to the street; _25 And ever as she went her light fair feet Erased these images.
The bride-maidens who round her thronging came, Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame, Envying the unenviable; and others Making the joy which should have been another’s _30 Their own by gentle sympathy; and some Sighing to think of an unhappy home: Some few admiring what can ever lure Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure Of parents’ smiles for life’s great cheat; a thing _35 Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.
But they are all dispersed—and, lo! she stands Looking in idle grief on her white hands, Alone within the garden now her own; _40 And through the sunny air, with jangling tone, The music of the merry marriage-bells, Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells;— Absorbed like one within a dream who dreams That he is dreaming, until slumber seems _45 A mockery of itself—when suddenly Antonio stood before her, pale as she. With agony, with sorrow, and with pride, He lifted his wan eyes upon the bride, And said—‘Is this thy faith?’ and then as one _50 Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun With light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise And look upon his day of life with eyes Which weep in vain that they can dream no more, Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore _55 To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued Said—‘Friend, if earthly violence or ill, Suspicion, doubt, or the tyrannic will Of parents, chance or custom, time or change, _60 Or circumstance, or terror, or revenge, Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech, With all their stings and venom can impeach Our love,—we love not:—if the grave which hides The victim from the tyrant, and divides _65 The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart Imperious inquisition to the heart That is another’s, could dissever ours, We love not.’—‘What! do not the silent hours Beckon thee to Gherardi’s bridal bed? _70 Is not that ring’—a pledge, he would have said, Of broken vows, but she with patient look The golden circle from her finger took, And said—‘Accept this token of my faith, The pledge of vows to be absolved by death; _75 And I am dead or shall be soon—my knell Will mix its music with that merry bell, Does it not sound as if they sweetly said “We toll a corpse out of the marriage-bed”? The flowers upon my bridal chamber strewn _80 Will serve unfaded for my bier—so soon That even the dying violet will not die Before Ginevra.’ The strong fantasy Had made her accents weaker and more weak, And quenched the crimson life upon her cheek, _85 And glazed her eyes, and spread an atmosphere Round her, which chilled the burning noon with fear, Making her but an image of the thought Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought News of the terrors of the coming time. _90 Like an accuser branded with the crime He would have cast on a beloved friend, Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end The pale betrayer—he then with vain repentance Would share, he cannot now avert, the sentence— _95 Antonio stood and would have spoken, when The compound voice of women and of men Was heard approaching; he retired, while she Was led amid the admiring company Back to the palace,—and her maidens soon _100 Changed her attire for the afternoon, And left her at her own request to keep An hour of quiet rest:—like one asleep With open eyes and folded hands she lay, Pale in the light of the declining day. _105
Meanwhile the day sinks fast, the sun is set, And in the lighted hall the guests are met; The beautiful looked lovelier in the light Of love, and admiration, and delight Reflected from a thousand hearts and eyes, _110 Kindling a momentary Paradise. This crowd is safer than the silent wood, Where love’s own doubts disturb the solitude; On frozen hearts the fiery rain of wine Falls, and the dew of music more divine _115 Tempers the deep emotions of the time To spirits cradled in a sunny clime:— How many meet, who never yet have met, To part too soon, but never to forget. How many saw the beauty, power and wit _120 Of looks and words which ne’er enchanted yet; But life’s familiar veil was now withdrawn, As the world leaps before an earthquake’s dawn, And unprophetic of the coming hours, The matin winds from the expanded flowers _125 Scatter their hoarded incense, and awaken The earth, until the dewy sleep is shaken From every living heart which it possesses, Through seas and winds, cities and wildernesses, As if the future and the past were all _130 Treasured i’ the instant;—so Gherardi’s hall Laughed in the mirth of its lord’s festival, Till some one asked—‘Where is the Bride?’ And then A bridesmaid went,—and ere she came again A silence fell upon the guests—a pause _135 Of expectation, as when beauty awes All hearts with its approach, though unbeheld; Then wonder, and then fear that wonder quelled;— For whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew The colour from the hearer’s cheeks, and flew _140 Louder and swifter round the company; And then Gherardi entered with an eye Of ostentatious trouble, and a crowd Surrounded him, and some were weeping loud.
They found Ginevra dead! if it be death _145 To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath, With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white, And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light Mocked at the speculation they had owned. If it be death, when there is felt around _150 A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare, And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair From the scalp to the ankles, as it were Corruption from the spirit passing forth, And giving all it shrouded to the earth, _155 And leaving as swift lightning in its flight Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night Of thought we know thus much of death,—no more Than the unborn dream of our life before Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore. _160 The marriage feast and its solemnity Was turned to funeral pomp—the company, With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they Who loved the dead went weeping on their way Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise _165 Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes, On which that form, whose fate they weep in vain, Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again. The lamps which, half extinguished in their haste, Gleamed few and faint o’er the abandoned feast, _170 Showed as it were within the vaulted room A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom Had passed out of men’s minds into the air. Some few yet stood around Gherardi there, Friends and relations of the dead,—and he, _175 A loveless man, accepted torpidly The consolation that he wanted not; Awe in the place of grief within him wrought. Their whispers made the solemn silence seem More still—some wept,... _180 Some melted into tears without a sob, And some with hearts that might be heard to throb Leaned on the table and at intervals Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came _185 Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame Of every torch and taper as it swept From out the chamber where the women kept;— Their tears fell on the dear companion cold Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled _190 The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived, And finding Death their penitent had shrived, Returned like ravens from a corpse whereon A vulture has just feasted to the bone. And then the mourning women came.— _195
...
THE DIRGE.
Old winter was gone In his weakness back to the mountains hoar, And the spring came down From the planet that hovers upon the shore
Where the sea of sunlight encroaches _200 On the limits of wintry night;— If the land, and the air, and the sea, Rejoice not when spring approaches, We did not rejoice in thee, Ginevra! _205
She is still, she is cold On the bridal couch, One step to the white deathbed, And one to the bier, And one to the charnel—and one, oh where? _210 The dark arrow fled In the noon.
Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, The rats in her heart Will have made their nest, _215 And the worms be alive in her golden hair, While the Spirit that guides the sun, Sits throned in his flaming chair, She shall sleep.
NOTES: 22 Was]Were cj. Rossetti.old 26 ever 1824; even editions 1839. _37 Bitter editions 1839; Better 1824. _63 wanting in 1824. _103 quiet rest cj. A.C. Bradley; quiet and rest 1824. _129 winds]lands cj. Forman; waves, sands or strands cj. Rossetti. _167 On]In cj. Rossetti.
***
EVENING: PONTE AL MARE, PISA
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a draft amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]
1. The sun is set; the swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, And evening’s breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, _5 Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
2. There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light; And in the inconstant motion of the breeze _10 The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.
3. Within the surface of the fleeting river The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and forever _15 It trembles, but it never fades away; Go to the... You, being changed, will find it then as now.
4. The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, _20 Like mountain over mountain huddled—but Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a space of watery blue, Which the keen evening star is shining through..
NOTES: _6 summer 1839, 2nd edition; silent 1824, 1839, 1st edition. _20 cinereous Boscombe manuscript; enormous editions 1824, 1839.
***
THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO.
[Published in part (lines 1-61, 88-118) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
Our boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast, _5 Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.
The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, And the thin white moon lay withering there; To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree, The owl and the bat fled drowsily. _10 Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapours in their multitudes, And the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aery gold _15 The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.
Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, And the milkmaid’s song and the mower’s scythe And the matin-bell and the mountain bee: _20 Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn, Glow-worms went out on the river’s brim, Like lamps which a student forgets to trim: The beetle forgot to wind his horn, The crickets were still in the meadow and hill: _25 Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun Night’s dreams and terrors, every one, Fled from the brains which are their prey From the lamp’s death to the morning ray.
All rose to do the task He set to each, _30 Who shaped us to His ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and one to teach What none yet ever knew or can be known. And many rose Whose woe was such that fear became desire;— _35 Melchior and Lionel were not among those; They from the throng of men had stepped aside, And made their home under the green hill-side. It was that hill, whose intervening brow Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye, _40 Which the circumfluous plain waving below, Like a wide lake of green fertility, With streams and fields and marshes bare, Divides from the far Apennines—which lie Islanded in the immeasurable air. _45
‘What think you, as she lies in her green cove, Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?’ ‘If morning dreams are true, why I should guess That she was dreaming of our idleness, And of the miles of watery way _50 We should have led her by this time of day.’-
‘Never mind,’ said Lionel, ‘Give care to the winds, they can bear it well About yon poplar-tops; and see The white clouds are driving merrily, _55 And the stars we miss this morn will light More willingly our return to-night.— How it whistles, Dominic’s long black hair! List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair: Hear how it sings into the air—’ _60
—‘Of us and of our lazy motions,’ Impatiently said Melchior, ‘If I can guess a boat’s emotions; And how we ought, two hours before, To have been the devil knows where.’ _65 And then, in such transalpine Tuscan As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,
...
So, Lionel according to his art Weaving his idle words, Melchior said: ‘She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; _70 We’ll put a soul into her, and a heart Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat.’
...
‘Ay, heave the ballast overboard, And stow the eatables in the aft locker.’ ‘Would not this keg be best a little lowered?’ _75 ‘No, now all’s right.’ ‘Those bottles of warm tea— (Give me some straw)—must be stowed tenderly; Such as we used, in summer after six, To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton, _80 And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours, Would feast till eight.’
...
With a bottle in one hand, As if his very soul were at a stand _85 Lionel stood—when Melchior brought him steady:— ‘Sit at the helm—fasten this sheet—all ready!’
The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, The living breath is fresh behind, As with dews and sunrise fed, _90 Comes the laughing morning wind;— The sails are full, the boat makes head Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce, Then flags with intermitting course, And hangs upon the wave, and stems _95 The tempest of the... Which fervid from its mountain source Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,— Swift as fire, tempestuously It sweeps into the affrighted sea; _100 In morning’s smile its eddies coil, Its billows sparkle, toss and boil, Torturing all its quiet light Into columns fierce and bright.
The Serchio, twisting forth _105 Between the marble barriers which it clove At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm The wave that died the death which lovers love, Living in what it sought; as if this spasm Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling, _110 But the clear stream in full enthusiasm Pours itself on the plain, then wandering Down one clear path of effluence crystalline Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling At Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine; Then, through the pestilential deserts wild Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine, It rushes to the Ocean.
NOTES: _58-_61 List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair; How it scatters Dominic’s long black hair! Singing of us, and our lazy motions, If I can guess a boat’s emotions.’—editions 1824, 1839. _61-_67 Rossetti places these lines conjecturally between lines 51 and 52. _61-_65 ‘are evidently an alternative version of 48-51’ (A.C. Bradley). _95, _96 and stems The tempest of the wanting in editions 1824, 1839. _112 then Boscombe manuscript; until editions 1824, 1839 _114 superfluous Boscombe manuscript; clear editions 1824, 1839. _117 pine Boscombe manuscript; fir editions 1824, 1839.
***
MUSIC.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1. I pant for the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine, Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain, _5 I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
2. Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound, More, oh more,—I am thirsting yet; It loosens the serpent which care has bound Upon my heart to stifle it; _10 The dissolving strain, through every vein, Passes into my heart and brain.
3. As the scent of a violet withered up, Which grew by the brink of a silver lake, When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup, _15 And mist there was none its thirst to slake— And the violet lay dead while the odour flew On the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue—
4. As one who drinks from a charmed cup Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, _20 Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up, Invites to love with her kiss divine...
NOTES: _16 mist 1824; tank 1839, 2nd edition.
***
SONNET TO BYRON.
[Published by Medwin, “The Shelley Papers”, 1832 (lines 1-7), and “Life of Shelley”, 1847 (lines 1-9, 12-14). Revised and completed from the Boscombe manuscript by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
[I am afraid these verses will not please you, but] If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair The ministration of the thoughts that fill The mind which, like a worm whose life may share A portion of the unapproachable, _5 Marks your creations rise as fast and fair As perfect worlds at the Creator’s will.
But such is my regard that nor your power To soar above the heights where others [climb], Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour _10 Cast from the envious future on the time, Move one regret for his unhonoured name Who dares these words:—the worm beneath the sod May lift itself in homage of the God.
NOTES: _1 you edition 1870; him 1832; thee 1847. _4 So edition 1870; My soul which as a worm may haply share 1832; My soul which even as a worm may share 1847. _6 your edition 1870; his 1832; thy 1847. _8, _9 So edition 1870 wanting 1832 - But not the blessings of thy happier lot, Nor thy well-won prosperity, and fame 1847. _10, _11 So edition 1870; wanting 1832, 1847. _12-_14 So 1847, edition 1870; wanting 1832.
***
FRAGMENT ON KEATS.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition—ED.]
ON KEATS, WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED—
‘Here lieth One whose name was writ on water. But, ere the breath that could erase it blew, Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter, Death, the immortalizing winter, flew Athwart the stream,—and time’s printless torrent grew _5 A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name Of Adonais!
***
FRAGMENT: ‘METHOUGHT I WAS A BILLOW IN THE CROWD’.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
Methought I was a billow in the crowd Of common men, that stream without a shore, That ocean which at once is deaf and loud; That I, a man, stood amid many more By a wayside..., which the aspect bore _5 Of some imperial metropolis, Where mighty shapes—pyramid, dome, and tower— Gleamed like a pile of crags—
***
TO-MORROW.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
Where art thou, beloved To-morrow? When young and old, and strong and weak, Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,— In thy place—ah! well-a-day! _5 We find the thing we fled—To-day.
***
STANZA.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. Connected by Dowden with the preceding.]
If I walk in Autumn’s even While the dead leaves pass, If I look on Spring’s soft heaven,— Something is not there which was Winter’s wondrous frost and snow, _5 Summer’s clouds, where are they now?
***
FRAGMENT: A WANDERER.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.
***
FRAGMENT: LIFE ROUNDED WITH SLEEP.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
The babe is at peace within the womb; The corpse is at rest within the tomb: We begin in what we end.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘I FAINT, I PERISH WITH MY LOVE!‘.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
I faint, I perish with my love! I grow Frail as a cloud whose [splendours] pale Under the evening’s ever-changing glow: I die like mist upon the gale, And like a wave under the calm I fail. _5
***
FRAGMENT: THE LADY OF THE SOUTH.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
Faint with love, the Lady of the South Lay in the paradise of Lebanon Under a heaven of cedar boughs: the drouth Of love was on her lips; the light was gone Out of her eyes— _5
***
FRAGMENT: ZEPHYRUS THE AWAKENER.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
Come, thou awakener of the spirit’s ocean, Zephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave No thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion!
***
FRAGMENT: RAIN.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
The gentleness of rain was in the wind.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘WHEN SOFT WINDS AND SUNNY SKIES’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
When soft winds and sunny skies With the green earth harmonize, And the young and dewy dawn, Bold as an unhunted fawn, Up the windless heaven is gone,— _5 Laugh—for ambushed in the day,— Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘AND THAT I WALK THUS PROUDLY CROWNED’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
And that I walk thus proudly crowned withal Is that ’tis my distinction; if I fall, I shall not weep out of the vital day, To-morrow dust, nor wear a dull decay.
NOTE: _2 ’Tis that is or In that is cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘THE RUDE WIND IS SINGING’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
The rude wind is singing The dirge of the music dead; The cold worms are clinging Where kisses were lately fed.
***
FRAGMENT: ‘GREAT SPIRIT’.
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
Great Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought Nurtures within its unimagined caves, In which thou sittest sole, as in my mind, Giving a voice to its mysterious waves—
***
FRAGMENT: ‘O THOU IMMORTAL DEITY’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
O thou immortal deity Whose throne is in the depth of human thought, I do adjure thy power and thee By all that man may be, by all that he is not, By all that he has been and yet must be! _5
***
FRAGMENT: THE FALSE LAUREL AND THE TRUE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
‘What art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest The wreath to mighty poets only due, Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest? Touch not those leaves which for the eternal few Who wander o’er the Paradise of fame, _5 In sacred dedication ever grew: One of the crowd thou art without a name.’ ‘Ah, friend, ’tis the false laurel that I wear; Bright though it seem, it is not the same As that which bound Milton’s immortal hair; _10 Its dew is poison; and the hopes that quicken Under its chilling shade, though seeming fair, Are flowers which die almost before they sicken.’
***
FRAGMENT: MAY THE LIMNER.
[This and the three following Fragments were edited from manuscript Shelley D1 at the Bodleian Library and published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903. They are printed here as belonging probably to the year 1821.]
When May is painting with her colours gay The landscape sketched by April her sweet twin...
***
FRAGMENT: BEAUTY’S HALO.
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc, 1903.]
Thy beauty hangs around thee like Splendour around the moon— Thy voice, as silver bells that strike Upon
***
FRAGMENT: ‘THE DEATH KNELL IS RINGING’.
(‘This reads like a study for “Autumn, A Dirge”’ (Locock). Might it not be part of a projected Fit v. of “The Fugitives”?—ED.)
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]
The death knell is ringing The raven is singing The earth worm is creeping The mourners are weeping Ding dong, bell— _5
***
FRAGMENT: ‘I STOOD UPON A HEAVEN-CLEAVING TURRET’.
I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret Which overlooked a wide Metropolis— And in the temple of my heart my Spirit Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth— _5 And with a voice too faint to falter It shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer ’Twas noon,—the sleeping skies were blue The city
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1821, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
My task becomes inexpressibly painful as the year draws near that which sealed our earthly fate, and each poem, and each event it records, has a real or mysterious connection with the fatal catastrophe. I feel that I am incapable of putting on paper the history of those times. The heart of the man, abhorred of the poet, who could
‘peep and botanize Upon his mother’s grave,’
does not appear to me more inexplicably framed than that of one who can dissect and probe past woes, and repeat to the public ear the groans drawn from them in the throes of their agony.
The year 1821 was spent in Pisa, or at the Baths of San Giuliano. We were not, as our wont had been, alone; friends had gathered round us. Nearly all are dead, and, when Memory recurs to the past, she wanders among tombs. The genius, with all his blighting errors and mighty powers; the companion of Shelley’s ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of his fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and fearless; and others, who found in Shelley’s society, and in his great knowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction, and solace; have joined him beyond the grave. A few survive who have felt life a desert since he left it. What misfortune can equal death? Change can convert every other into a blessing, or heal its sting—death alone has no cure. It shakes the foundations of the earth on which we tread; it destroys its beauty; it casts down our shelter; it exposes us bare to desolation. When those we love have passed into eternity, ‘life is the desert and the solitude’ in which we are forced to linger—but never find comfort more.
There is much in the “Adonais” which seems now more applicable to Shelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The poetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards his calumniators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received among immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished into emptiness before the fame he inherits.
Shelley’s favourite taste was boating; when living near the Thames or by the Lake of Geneva, much of his life was spent on the water. On the shore of every lake or stream or sea near which he dwelt, he had a boat moored. He had latterly enjoyed this pleasure again. There are no pleasure-boats on the Arno; and the shallowness of its waters (except in winter-time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for boating) rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float. Shelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend, contrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the Maremma, to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the forests,—a boat of laths and pitched canvas. It held three persons; and he was often seen on the Arno in it, to the horror of the Italians, who remonstrated on the danger, and could not understand how anyone could take pleasure in an exercise that risked life. ‘Ma va per la vita!’ they exclaimed. I little thought how true their words would prove. He once ventured, with a friend, on the glassy sea of a calm day, down the Arno and round the coast to Leghorn, which, by keeping close in shore, was very practicable. They returned to Pisa by the canal, when, missing the direct cut, they got entangled among weeds, and the boat upset; a wetting was all the harm done, except that the intense cold of his drenched clothes made Shelley faint. Once I went down with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and swift, met the tideless sea, and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was a waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched into a point surrounded by waves that broke idly though perpetually around; it was a
## scene very similar to Lido, of which he had said—
‘I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be: And such was this wide ocean, and this shore More barren than its billows.’
Our little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when we removed to the Baths. Some friends lived at the village of Pugnano, four miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the canal; which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and picturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks, sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of Ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley’s health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country where chance appeared to cast us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm situated on the height of one of the near hills, surrounded by chestnut and pine woods, and overlooking a wide extent of country: or settling still farther in the maritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished poems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us. It is the nature of that poetry, however, which overflows from the soul oftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed by the weight of life, and away from those he loves, that the poet has recourse to the solace of expression in verse.
Still, Shelley’s passion was the ocean; and he wished that our summers, instead of being passed among the hills near Pisa, should be spent on the shores of the sea. It was very difficult to find a spot. We shrank from Naples from a fear that the heats would disagree with Percy: Leghorn had lost its only attraction, since our friends who had resided there were returned to England; and, Monte Nero being the resort of many English, we did not wish to find ourselves in the midst of a colony of chance travellers. No one then thought it possible to reside at Via Reggio, which latterly has become a summer resort. The low lands and bad air of Maremma stretch the whole length of the western shores of the Mediterranean, till broken by the rocks and hills of Spezia. It was a vague idea, but Shelley suggested an excursion to Spezia, to see whether it would be feasible to spend a summer there. The beauty of the bay enchanted him. We saw no house to suit us; but the notion took root, and many circumstances, enchained as by fatality, occurred to urge him to execute it.
He looked forward this autumn with great pleasure to the prospect of a visit from Leigh Hunt. When Shelley visited Lord Byron at Ravenna, the latter had suggested his coming out, together with the plan of a periodical work in which they should all join. Shelley saw a prospect of good for the fortunes of his friend, and pleasure in his society; and instantly exerted himself to have the plan executed. He did not intend himself joining in the work: partly from pride, not wishing to have the air of acquiring readers for his poetry by associating it with the compositions of more popular writers; and also because he might feel shackled in the free expression of his opinions, if any friends were to be compromised. By those opinions, carried even to their outermost extent, he wished to live and die, as being in his conviction not only true, but such as alone would conduce to the moral improvement and happiness of mankind. The sale of the work might meanwhile, either really or supposedly, be injured by the free expression of his thoughts; and this evil he resolved to avoid.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822.
THE ZUCCA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated ‘January, 1822.’ There is a copy amongst the Boscombe manuscripts.]
1. Summer was dead and Autumn was expiring, And infant Winter laughed upon the land All cloudlessly and cold;—when I, desiring More in this world than any understand, Wept o’er the beauty, which, like sea retiring, _5 Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand Of my lorn heart, and o’er the grass and flowers Pale for the falsehood of the flattering Hours.
2. Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep The instability of all but weeping; _10 And on the Earth lulled in her winter sleep I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping. Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping From unremembered dreams, shalt ... see _15 No death divide thy immortality.
3. I loved—oh, no, I mean not one of ye, Or any earthly one, though ye are dear As human heart to human heart may be;— I loved, I know not what—but this low sphere _20 And all that it contains, contains not thee, Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere. From Heaven and Earth, and all that in them are, Veiled art thou, like a ... star.
4. By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest, _25 Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden; Making divine the loftiest and the lowest, When for a moment thou art not forbidden To live within the life which thou bestowest; And leaving noblest things vacant and chidden, _30 Cold as a corpse after the spirit’s flight Blank as the sun after the birth of night.
5. In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common, In music and the sweet unconscious tone Of animals, and voices which are human, _35 Meant to express some feelings of their own; In the soft motions and rare smile of woman, In flowers and leaves, and in the grass fresh-shown, Or dying in the autumn, I the most Adore thee present or lament thee lost. _40
6. And thus I went lamenting, when I saw A plant upon the river’s margin lie Like one who loved beyond his nature’s law, And in despair had cast him down to die; Its leaves, which had outlived the frost, the thaw _45 Had blighted; like a heart which hatred’s eye Can blast not, but which pity kills; the dew Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.
7. The Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth Had crushed it on her maternal breast _50
...
8. I bore it to my chamber, and I planted It in a vase full of the lightest mould; The winter beams which out of Heaven slanted Fell through the window-panes, disrobed of cold, Upon its leaves and flowers; the stars which panted _55 In evening for the Day, whose car has rolled Over the horizon’s wave, with looks of light Smiled on it from the threshold of the night.
9. The mitigated influences of air And light revived the plant, and from it grew _60 Strong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair, Full as a cup with the vine’s burning dew, O’erflowed with golden colours; an atmosphere Of vital warmth enfolded it anew, And every impulse sent to every part The unbeheld pulsations of its heart. _65
10. Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong, Even if the air and sun had smiled not on it; For one wept o’er it all the winter long Tears pure as Heaven’s rain, which fell upon it _70 Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song Mixed with the stringed melodies that won it To leave the gentle lips on which it slept, Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept.
11. Had loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers _75 On which he wept, the while the savage storm Waked by the darkest of December’s hours Was raving round the chamber hushed and warm; The birds were shivering in their leafless bowers, The fish were frozen in the pools, the form _80 Of every summer plant was dead Whilst this....
...
NOTES: _7 lorn Boscombe manuscript; poor edition 1824. _23 So Boscombe manuscript; Dim object of soul’s idolatry edition 1824. _24 star Boscombe manuscript; wanting edition 1824. _38 grass fresh Boscombe manuscript; fresh grass edition 1824. _46 like Boscombe manuscript; as edition 1824. _68 air and sun Boscombe manuscript; sun and air edition 1824.
***
THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT.
[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, August 11, 1832. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]
1. ‘Sleep, sleep on! forget thy pain; My hand is on thy brow, My spirit on thy brain; My pity on thy heart, poor friend; And from my fingers flow _5 The powers of life, and like a sign, Seal thee from thine hour of woe; And brood on thee, but may not blend With thine.
2. ‘Sleep, sleep on! I love thee not; _10 But when I think that he Who made and makes my lot As full of flowers as thine of weeds, Might have been lost like thee; And that a hand which was not mine _15 Might then have charmed his agony As I another’s—my heart bleeds For thine.
3. ‘Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of The dead and the unborn _20 Forget thy life and love; Forget that thou must wake forever; Forget the world’s dull scorn; Forget lost health, and the divine Feelings which died in youth’s brief morn; _25 And forget me, for I can never Be thine.
4. ‘Like a cloud big with a May shower, My soul weeps healing rain On thee, thou withered flower! _30 It breathes mute music on thy sleep Its odour calms thy brain! Its light within thy gloomy breast Spreads like a second youth again. By mine thy being is to its deep _35 Possessed.
5. ‘The spell is done. How feel you now?’ ‘Better—Quite well,’ replied The sleeper.—‘What would do _39 You good when suffering and awake? What cure your head and side?—’ ‘What would cure, that would kill me, Jane: And as I must on earth abide Awhile, yet tempt me not to break My chain.’ _45
NOTES; _1, _10 Sleep Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; Sleep on 1832, 1839, 1st edition. _16 charmed Trelawny manuscript; chased 1832, editions 1839. _21 love]woe 1832. _42 so Trelawny manuscript ’Twould kill me what would cure my pain 1832, editions 1839. _44 Awhile yet, cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
LINES: ‘WHEN THE LAMP IS SHATTERED’.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]
1. When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered The rainbow’s glory is shed. When the lute is broken, _5 Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.
2. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, _10 The heart’s echoes render No song when the spirit is mute:— No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges _15 That ring the dead seaman’s knell.
3. When hearts have once mingled Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled To endure what it once possessed. _20 O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
4. Its passions will rock thee _25 As the storms rock the ravens on high; Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home _30 Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.
NOTES: _6 tones edition 1824; notes Trelawny manuscript. _14 through edition 1824; in Trelawny manuscript. _16 dead edition 1824; lost Trelawny manuscript. _23 choose edition 1824; chose Trelawny manuscript. _25-_32 wanting Trelawny manuscript.
***
TO JANE: THE INVITATION.
[This and the following poem were published together in their original form as one piece under the title, “The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa”, by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; reprinted in the same shape, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; republished separately in their present form, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]
Best and brightest, come away! Fairer far than this fair Day, Which, like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake _5 In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born, _10 Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, _15 And breathed upon the frozen mountains, And like a prophetess of May Strewed flowers upon the barren way, Making the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. _20
Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs— To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find _25 An echo in another’s mind, While the touch of Nature’s art Harmonizes heart to heart. I leave this notice on my door For each accustomed visitor:— _30 ‘I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields;— Reflection, you may come to-morrow, Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.— You with the unpaid bill, Despair,— You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,— _35 I will pay you in the grave,— Death will listen to your stave. Expectation too, be off! To-day is for itself enough; _40 Hope, in pity mock not Woe With smiles, nor follow where I go; Long having lived on thy sweet food, At length I find one moment’s good After long pain—with all your love, _45 This you never told me of.’
Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, And the pools where winter rains _50. Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green and ivy dun Round stems that never kiss the sun; Where the lawns and pastures be, _55 And the sandhills of the sea;— Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers, and violets, Which yet join not scent to hue, _60 Crown the pale year weak and new; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dun and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous _65 Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal sun.
NOTES: _34 with Trelawny manuscript; of 1839, 2nd edition. _44 moment’s Trelawny manuscript; moment 1839, 2nd edition. _50 And Trelawny manuscript; To 1839, 2nd edition. _53 dun Trelawny manuscript; dim 1839, 2nd edition.
***
TO JANE: THE RECOLLECTION.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. See the Editor’s prefatory note to the preceding.]
1. Now the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, Rise, Memory, and write its praise! Up,—to thy wonted work! come, trace _5 The epitaph of glory fled,— For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
2. We wandered to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean’s foam, _10 The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep _15 The smile of Heaven lay; It seemed as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies, Which scattered from above the sun A light of Paradise. _20
3. We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced; And, soothed by every azure breath, _25 That under Heaven is blown, To harmonies and hues beneath, As tender as its own, Now all the tree-tops lay asleep, Like green waves on the sea, _30 As still as in the silent deep The ocean woods may be.
4. How calm it was!—the silence there By such a chain was bound That even the busy woodpecker _35 Made stiller by her sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. _40 There seemed from the remotest seat Of the white mountain waste, To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced,— A spirit interfused around _45 A thrilling, silent life,— To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature’s strife; And still I felt the centre of The magic circle there _50 Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.
5. We paused beside the pools that lie Under the forest bough,— Each seemed as ’twere a little sky _55 Gulfed in a world below; A firmament of purple light Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night, And purer than the day— _60 In which the lovely forests grew, As in the upper air, More perfect both in shape and hue Than any spreading there. There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, _65 And through the dark green wood The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud. Sweet views which in our world above Can never well be seen, _70 Were imaged by the water’s love Of that fair forest green. And all was interfused beneath With an Elysian glow, An atmosphere without a breath, _75 A softer day below. Like one beloved the scene had lent To the dark water’s breast, Its every leaf and lineament With more than truth expressed; _80 Until an envious wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, Which from the mind’s too faithful eye Blots one dear image out. Though thou art ever fair and kind, _85 The forests ever green, Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind, Than calm in waters, seen.
NOTES: _6 fled edition. 1824; dead Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition. _10 Ocean’s]Ocean 1839, 2nd edition. _24 Interlaced, 1839; interlaced; cj. A.C. Bradley. _28 own; 1839 own, cj. A.C. Bradley. _42 white Trelawny manuscript; wide 1839, 2nd edition _87 Shelley’s Trelawny manuscript; S—‘s 1839, 2nd edition.]
***
THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE NEAR PISA.
[This, the first draft of “To Jane: The Invitation, The Recollection”, was published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and reprinted, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. See Editor’s Prefatory Note to “The Invitation”, above.]
Dearest, best and brightest, Come away, To the woods and to the fields! Dearer than this fairest day Which, like thee to those in sorrow, _5 Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake In its cradle in the brake. The eldest of the Hours of Spring, Into the Winter wandering, _10 Looks upon the leafless wood, And the banks all bare and rude; Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn In February’s bosom born, Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, _15 Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free; And waked to music all the fountains, And breathed upon the rigid mountains, _20 And made the wintry world appear Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.
Radiant Sister of the Day, Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, _25 To the pools where winter rains Image all the roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Sapless, gray, and ivy dun Round stems that never kiss the sun— _30 To the sandhills of the sea, Where the earliest violets be.
Now the last day of many days, All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead, _35 Rise, Memory, and write its praise! And do thy wonted work and trace The epitaph of glory fled; For now the Earth has changed its face, A frown is on the Heaven’s brow. _40
We wandered to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean’s foam, The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep, _45 The clouds were gone to play, And on the woods, and on the deep The smile of Heaven lay.
It seemed as if the day were one Sent from beyond the skies, _50 Which shed to earth above the sun A light of Paradise.
We paused amid the pines that stood, The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude _55 With stems like serpents interlaced.
How calm it was—the silence there By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller by her sound _60
The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew.
It seemed that from the remotest seat _65 Of the white mountain’s waste To the bright flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced;—
A spirit interfused around, A thinking, silent life; _70 To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature’s strife;—
And still, it seemed, the centre of The magic circle there, Was one whose being filled with love _75 The breathless atmosphere.
Were not the crocuses that grew Under that ilex-tree As beautiful in scent and hue As ever fed the bee? _80
We stood beneath the pools that lie Under the forest bough, And each seemed like a sky Gulfed in a world below;
A purple firmament of light _85 Which in the dark earth lay, More boundless than the depth of night, And clearer than the day—
In which the massy forests grew As in the upper air, _90 More perfect both in shape and hue Than any waving there.
Like one beloved the scene had lent To the dark water’s breast Its every leaf and lineament _95 With that clear truth expressed;
There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green crowd The white sun twinkling like the dawn Under a speckled cloud. _100
Sweet views, which in our world above Can never well be seen, Were imaged by the water’s love Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath _105 With an Elysian air, An atmosphere without a breath, A silence sleeping there.
Until a wandering wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought, _110 Which from my mind’s too faithful eye Blots thy bright image out.
For thou art good and dear and kind, The forest ever green, But less of peace in S—‘s mind, Than calm in waters, seen. _116.
***
WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE.
[Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, October 20, 1832; “Frazer’s Magazine”, January 1833. There is a copy amongst the Trelawny manuscripts.]
Ariel to Miranda:—Take This slave of Music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee, And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou, _5 Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again, And, too intense, is turned to pain; For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, _10 Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who, From life to life, must still pursue Your happiness;—for thus alone _15 Can Ariel ever find his own. From Prospero’s enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples, he Lit you o’er the trackless sea, _20 Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent Moon, In her interlunar swoon, Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel. When you live again on earth, Like an unseen star of birth, Ariel guides you o’er the sea Of life from your nativity. _30 Many changes have been run Since Ferdinand and you begun Your course of love, and Ariel still Has tracked your steps, and served your will; Now, in humbler, happier lot, _35 This is all remembered not; And now, alas! the poor sprite is Imprisoned, for some fault of his, In a body like a grave;— From you he only dares to crave, _40 For his service and his sorrow, A smile today, a song tomorrow.
The artist who this idol wrought, To echo all harmonious thought, Felled a tree, while on the steep _45 The woods were in their winter sleep, Rocked in that repose divine On the wind-swept Apennine; And dreaming, some of Autumn past, And some of Spring approaching fast, _50 And some of April buds and showers, And some of songs in July bowers, And all of love; and so this tree,— O that such our death may be!— Died in sleep, and felt no pain, _55 To live in happier form again: From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star, The artist wrought this loved Guitar, And taught it justly to reply, To all who question skilfully, _60 In language gentle as thine own; Whispering in enamoured tone Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells; For it had learned all harmonies _65 Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many-voiced fountains; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, _70 The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound, _75 Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way.— All this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well _80 The Spirit that inhabits it; It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before, By those who tempt it to betray _85 These secrets of an elder day: But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest, holiest tone For our beloved Jane alone. _90
NOTES: _12 Of more than ever]Of love that never 1833. _46 woods Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; winds 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition. _58 this Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; that 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition. _61 thine own Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; its own 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition. _76 on Trelawny manuscript, 1839, 2nd edition; in 1832, 1833, 1839, 1st edition. _90 Jane Trelawny manuscript; friend 1832, 1833, editions 1839.
***
TO JANE: ‘THE KEEN STARS WERE TWINKLING’.
[Published in part (lines 7-24) by Medwin (under the title, “An Ariette for Music. To a Lady singing to her Accompaniment on the Guitar”), “The Athenaeum”, November 17, 1832; reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Republished in full (under the title, To —.), “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. The Trelawny manuscript is headed “To Jane”. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in an unknown hand.]
1. The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane! The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them _5 Again.
2. As the moon’s soft splendour O’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender _10 To the strings without soul had then given Its own.
3. The stars will awaken, Though the moon sleep a full hour later, To-night; _15 No leaf will be shaken Whilst the dews of your melody scatter Delight.
4. Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing _20 A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling Are one.
NOTES: _3 Dear *** 1839, 2nd edition. _7 soft]pale Fred. manuscript. _10 your 1839, 2nd edition.; thy 1832, 1839, 1st edition, Fred. manuscript. _11 had then 1839, 2nd edition; has 1832, 1839, 1st edition; hath Fred. manuscript. _12 Its]Thine Fred. manuscript. _17 your 1839, 2nd edition; thy 1832, 1839, 1st edition, Fred. manuscript. _19 sound]song Fred. manuscript. _20 your dear 1839, 2nd edition; thy sweet 1832, 1839, 1st edition; thy soft Fred. manuscript.
***
A DIRGE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
Rough wind, that moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm whose tears are vain, _5 Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main,— Wail, for the world’s wrong!
NOTE: _6 strain cj. Rossetti; stain edition 1824.
***
LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI.
[Published from the Boscombe manuscripts by Dr. Garnett, “Macmillan’s Magazine”, June, 1862; reprinted, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
She left me at the silent time When the moon had ceased to climb The azure path of Heaven’s steep, And like an albatross asleep, Balanced on her wings of light, _5 Hovered in the purple night, Ere she sought her ocean nest In the chambers of the West. She left me, and I stayed alone Thinking over every tone _10 Which, though silent to the ear, The enchanted heart could hear, Like notes which die when born, but still Haunt the echoes of the hill; And feeling ever—oh, too much!— _15 The soft vibration of her touch, As if her gentle hand, even now, Lightly trembled on my brow; And thus, although she absent were, Memory gave me all of her _20 That even Fancy dares to claim:— Her presence had made weak and tame All passions, and I lived alone In the time which is our own; The past and future were forgot, _25 As they had been, and would be, not. But soon, the guardian angel gone, The daemon reassumed his throne In my faint heart. I dare not speak My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak _30 I sat and saw the vessels glide Over the ocean bright and wide, Like spirit-winged chariots sent O’er some serenest element For ministrations strange and far; _35 As if to some Elysian star Sailed for drink to medicine Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. And the wind that winged their flight From the land came fresh and light, _40 And the scent of winged flowers, And the coolness of the hours Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, Were scattered o’er the twinkling bay. And the fisher with his lamp _45 And spear about the low rocks damp Crept, and struck the fish which came To worship the delusive flame. Too happy they, whose pleasure sought Extinguishes all sense and thought _50 Of the regret that pleasure leaves, Destroying life alone, not peace!
NOTES: _11 though silent Relics 1862; though now silent Mac. Mag. 1862. _31 saw Relics 1862; watched Mac. Mag. 1862.
***
LINES: ‘WE MEET NOT AS WE PARTED’.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
1. We meet not as we parted, We feel more than all may see; My bosom is heavy-hearted, And thine full of doubt for me:— One moment has bound the free. _5
2. That moment is gone for ever, Like lightning that flashed and died— Like a snowflake upon the river— Like a sunbeam upon the tide, Which the dark shadows hide. _10
3. That moment from time was singled As the first of a life of pain; The cup of its joy was mingled —Delusion too sweet though vain! Too sweet to be mine again. _15
4. Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden That its life was crushed by you, Ye would not have then forbidden The death which a heart so true Sought in your briny dew. _20
5. ... ... ... Methinks too little cost For a moment so found, so lost! _25
***
THE ISLE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
There was a little lawny islet By anemone and violet, Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Which the summer’s breath enweaves, _5 Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze Pierce the pines and tallest trees, Each a gem engraven;— Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave _10 A lake’s blue chasm.
***
FRAGMENT: TO THE MOON.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven, To whom alone it has been given To change and be adored for ever, Envy not this dim world, for never But once within its shadow grew _5 One fair as—
***
EPITAPH.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
These are two friends whose lives were undivided; So let their memory be, now they have glided Under the grave; let not their bones be parted, For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1822, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
This morn thy gallant bark Sailed on a sunny sea: ’Tis noon, and tempests dark Have wrecked it on the lee. Ah woe! ah woe! By Spirits of the deep Thou’rt cradled on the billow To thy eternal sleep.
Thou sleep’st upon the shore Beside the knelling surge, And Sea-nymphs evermore Shall sadly chant thy dirge. They come, they come, The Spirits of the deep,— While near thy seaweed pillow My lonely watch I keep.
From far across the sea I hear a loud lament, By Echo’s voice for thee From Ocean’s caverns sent. O list! O list! The Spirits of the deep! They raise a wail of sorrow, While I forever weep.
With this last year of the life of Shelley these Notes end. They are not what I intended them to be. I began with energy, and a burning desire to impart to the world, in worthy language, the sense I have of the virtues and genius of the beloved and the lost; my strength has failed under the task. Recurrence to the past, full of its own deep and unforgotten joys and sorrows, contrasted with succeeding years of painful and solitary struggle, has shaken my health. Days of great suffering have followed my attempts to write, and these again produced a weakness and languor that spread their sinister influence over these notes. I dislike speaking of myself, but cannot help apologizing to the dead, and to the public, for not having executed in the manner I desired the history I engaged to give of Shelley’s writings. (I at one time feared that the correction of the press might be less exact through my illness; but I believe that it is nearly free from error. Some asterisks occur in a few pages, as they did in the volume of “Posthumous Poems”, either because they refer to private concerns, or because the original manuscript was left imperfect. Did any one see the papers from which I drew that volume, the wonder would be how any eyes or patience were capable of extracting it from so confused a mass, interlined and broken into fragments, so that the sense could only be deciphered and joined by guesses which might seem rather intuitive than founded on reasoning. Yet I believe no mistake was made.)
The winter of 1822 was passed in Pisa, if we might call that season winter in which autumn merged into spring after the interval of but few days of bleaker weather. Spring sprang up early, and with extreme beauty. Shelley had conceived the idea of writing a tragedy on the subject of Charles I. It was one that he believed adapted for a drama; full of intense interest, contrasted character, and busy passion. He had recommended it long before, when he encouraged me to attempt a play. Whether the subject proved more difficult than he anticipated, or whether in fact he could not bend his mind away from the broodings and wanderings of thought, divested from human interest, which he best loved, I cannot tell; but he proceeded slowly, and threw it aside for one of the most mystical of his poems, the “Triumph of Life”, on which he was employed at the last.
His passion for boating was fostered at this time by having among our friends several sailors. His favourite companion, Edward Ellerker Williams, of the 8th Light Dragoons, had begun his life in the navy, and had afterwards entered the army; he had spent several years in India, and his love for adventure and manly exercises accorded with Shelley’s taste. It was their favourite plan to build a boat such as they could manage themselves, and, living on the sea-coast, to enjoy at every hour and season the pleasure they loved best. Captain Roberts, R.N., undertook to build the boat at Genoa, where he was also occupied in building the “Bolivar” for Lord Byron. Ours was to be an open boat, on a model taken from one of the royal dockyards. I have since heard that there was a defect in this model, and that it was never seaworthy. In the month of February, Shelley and his friend went to Spezia to seek for houses for us. Only one was to be found at all suitable; however, a trifle such as not finding a house could not stop Shelley; the one found was to serve for all. It was unfurnished; we sent our furniture by sea, and with a good deal of precipitation, arising from his impatience, made our removal. We left Pisa on the 26th of April.
The Bay of Spezia is of considerable extent, and divided by a rocky promontory into a larger and smaller one. The town of Lerici is situated on the eastern point, and in the depth of the smaller bay, which bears the name of this town, is the village of San Terenzo. Our house, Casa Magni, was close to this village; the sea came up to the door, a steep hill sheltered it behind. The proprietor of the estate on which it was situated was insane; he had begun to erect a large house at the summit of the hill behind, but his malady prevented its being finished, and it was falling into ruin. He had (and this to the Italians had seemed a glaring symptom of very decided madness) rooted up the olives on the hillside, and planted forest trees. These were mostly young, but the plantation was more in English taste than I ever elsewhere saw in Italy; some fine walnut and ilex trees intermingled their dark massy foliage, and formed groups which still haunt my memory, as then they satiated the eye with a sense of loveliness. The scene was indeed of unimaginable beauty. The blue extent of waters, the almost landlocked bay, the near castle of Lerici shutting it in to the east, and distant Porto Venere to the west; the varied forms of the precipitous rocks that bound in the beach, over which there was only a winding rugged footpath towards Lerici, and none on the other side; the tideless sea leaving no sands nor shingle, formed a picture such as one sees in Salvator Rosa’s landscapes only. Sometimes the sunshine vanished when the sirocco raged—the ‘ponente’ the wind was called on that shore. The gales and squalls that hailed our first arrival surrounded the bay with foam; the howling wind swept round our exposed house, and the sea roared unremittingly, so that we almost fancied ourselves on board ship. At other times sunshine and calm invested sea and sky, and the rich tints of Italian heaven bathed the scene in bright and ever-varying tints.
The natives were wilder than the place. Our near neighbours of San Terenzo were more like savages than any people I ever before lived among. Many a night they passed on the beach, singing, or rather howling; the women dancing about among the waves that broke at their feet, the men leaning against the rocks and joining in their loud wild chorus. We could get no provisions nearer than Sarzana, at a distance of three miles and a half off, with the torrent of the Magra between; and even there the supply was very deficient. Had we been wrecked on an island of the South Seas, we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther from civilisation and comfort; but, where the sun shines, the latter becomes an unnecessary luxury, and we had enough society among ourselves. Yet I confess housekeeping became rather a toilsome task, especially as I was suffering in my health, and could not exert myself
## actively.
At first the fatal boat had not arrived, and was expected with great impatience. On Monday, 12th May, it came. Williams records the long-wished-for fact in his journal: ‘Cloudy and threatening weather. M. Maglian called; and after dinner, and while walking with him on the terrace, we discovered a strange sail coming round the point of Porto Venere, which proved at length to be Shelley’s boat. She had left Genoa on Thursday last, but had been driven back by the prevailing bad winds. A Mr. Heslop and two English seamen brought her round, and they speak most highly of her performances. She does indeed excite my surprise and admiration. Shelley and I walked to Lerici, and made a stretch off the land to try her: and I find she fetches whatever she looks at. In short, we have now a perfect plaything for the summer.’—It was thus that short-sighted mortals welcomed Death, he having disguised his grim form in a pleasing mask! The time of the friends was now spent on the sea; the weather became fine, and our whole party often passed the evenings on the water when the wind promised pleasant sailing. Shelley and Williams made longer excursions; they sailed several times to Massa. They had engaged one of the seamen who brought her round, a boy, by name Charles Vivian; and they had not the slightest apprehension of danger. When the weather was unfavourable, they employed themselves with alterations in the rigging, and by building a boat of canvas and reeds, as light as possible, to have on board the other for the convenience of landing in waters too shallow for the larger vessel. When Shelley was on board, he had his papers with him; and much of the “Triumph of Life” was written as he sailed or weltered on that sea which was soon to engulf him.
The heats set in in the middle of June; the days became excessively hot. But the sea-breeze cooled the air at noon, and extreme heat always put Shelley in spirits. A long drought had preceded the heat; and prayers for rain were being put up in the churches, and processions of relics for the same effect took place in every town. At this time we received letters announcing the arrival of Leigh Hunt at Genoa. Shelley was very eager to see him. I was confined to my room by severe illness, and could not move; it was agreed that Shelley and Williams should go to Leghorn in the boat. Strange that no fear of danger crossed our minds! Living on the sea-shore, the ocean became as a plaything: as a child may sport with a lighted stick, till a spark inflames a forest, and spreads destruction over all, so did we fearlessly and blindly tamper with danger, and make a game of the terrors of the ocean. Our Italian neighbours, even, trusted themselves as far as Massa in the skiff; and the running down the line of coast to Leghorn gave no more notion of peril than a fair-weather inland navigation would have done to those who had never seen the sea. Once, some months before, Trelawny had raised a warning voice as to the difference of our calm bay and the open sea beyond; but Shelley and his friend, with their one sailor-boy, thought themselves a match for the storms of the Mediterranean, in a boat which they looked upon as equal to all it was put to do.
On the 1st of July they left us. If ever shadow of future ill darkened the present hour, such was over my mind when they went. During the whole of our stay at Lerici, an intense presentiment of coming evil brooded over my mind, and covered this beautiful place and genial summer with the shadow of coming misery. I had vainly struggled with these emotions—they seemed accounted for by my illness; but at this hour of separation they recurred with renewed violence. I did not anticipate danger for them, but a vague expectation of evil shook me to agony, and I could scarcely bring myself to let them go. The day was calm and clear; and, a fine breeze rising at twelve, they weighed for Leghorn. They made the run of about fifty miles in seven hours and a half. The “Bolivar” was in port; and, the regulations of the Health-office not permitting them to go on shore after sunset, they borrowed cushions from the larger vessel, and slept on board their boat.
They spent a week at Pisa and Leghorn. The want of rain was severely felt in the country. The weather continued sultry and fine. I have heard that Shelley all this time was in brilliant spirits. Not long before, talking of presentiment, he had said the only one that he ever found infallible was the certain advent of some evil fortune when he felt peculiarly joyous. Yet, if ever fate whispered of coming disaster, such inaudible but not unfelt prognostics hovered around us. The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roaring for ever in our ears,—all these things led the mind to brood over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to be familiar with the unreal. A sort of spell surrounded us; and each day, as the voyagers did not return, we grew restless and disquieted, and yet, strange to say, we were not fearful of the most apparent danger.
The spell snapped; it was all over; an interval of agonizing doubt—of days passed in miserable journeys to gain tidings, of hopes that took firmer root even as they were more baseless—was changed to the certainty of the death that eclipsed all happiness for the survivors for evermore.
There was something in our fate peculiarly harrowing. The remains of those we lost were cast on shore; but, by the quarantine-laws of the coast, we were not permitted to have possession of them—the law with respect to everything cast on land by the sea being that such should be burned, to prevent the possibility of any remnant bringing the plague into Italy; and no representation could alter the law. At length, through the kind and unwearied exertions of Mr. Dawkins, our Charge d’Affaires at Florence, we gained permission to receive the ashes after the bodies were consumed. Nothing could equal the zeal of Trelawny in carrying our wishes into effect. He was indefatigable in his exertions, and full of forethought and sagacity in his arrangements. It was a fearful task; he stood before us at last, his hands scorched and blistered by the flames of the funeral-pyre, and by touching the burnt relics as he placed them in the receptacles prepared for the purpose. And there, in compass of that small case, was gathered all that remained on earth of him whose genius and virtue were a crown of glory to the world—whose love had been the source of happiness, peace, and good,—to be buried with him!
The concluding stanzas of the “Adonais” pointed out where the remains ought to be deposited; in addition to which our beloved child lay buried in the cemetery at Rome. Thither Shelley’s ashes were conveyed; and they rest beneath one of the antique weed-grown towers that recur at intervals in the circuit of the massy ancient wall of Rome. He selected the hallowed place himself; there is
‘the sepulchre, Oh, not of him, but of our joy!— ... And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath, A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven’s smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.’
Could sorrow for the lost, and shuddering anguish at the vacancy left behind, be soothed by poetic imaginations, there was something in Shelley’s fate to mitigate pangs which yet, alas! could not be so mitigated; for hard reality brings too miserably home to the mourner all that is lost of happiness, all of lonely unsolaced struggle that remains. Still, though dreams and hues of poetry cannot blunt grief, it invests his fate with a sublime fitness, which those less nearly allied may regard with complacency. A year before he had poured into verse all such ideas about death as give it a glory of its own. He had, as it now seems, almost anticipated his own destiny; and, when the mind figures his skiff wrapped from sight by the thunder-storm, as it was last seen upon the purple sea, and then, as the cloud of the tempest passed away, no sign remained of where it had been (Captain Roberts watched the vessel with his glass from the top of the lighthouse of Leghorn, on its homeward track. They were off Via Reggio, at some distance from shore, when a storm was driven over the sea. It enveloped them and several larger vessels in darkness. When the cloud passed onwards, Roberts looked again, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean except their little schooner, which had vanished. From that time he could scarcely doubt the fatal truth; yet we fancied that they might have been driven towards Elba or Corsica, and so be saved. The observation made as to the spot where the boat disappeared caused it to be found, through the exertions of Trelawny for that effect. It had gone down in ten fathom water; it had not capsized, and, except such things as had floated from her, everything was found on board exactly as it had been placed when they sailed. The boat itself was uninjured. Roberts possessed himself of her, and decked her; but she proved not seaworthy, and her shattered planks now lie rotting on the shore of one of the Ionian islands, on which she was wrecked.)—who but will regard as a prophecy the last stanza of the “Adonais”?
‘The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.’
Putney, May 1, 1839.
THE COMPLETE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
VOLUME 3
OXFORD EDITION. INCLUDING MATERIALS NEVER BEFORE PRINTED IN ANY EDITION OF THE POEMS.
EDITED WITH TEXTUAL NOTES
BY
THOMAS HUTCHINSON, M. A. EDITOR OF THE OXFORD WORDSWORTH.
1914.
CONTENTS.
TRANSLATIONS.
HYMN TO MERCURY. TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER.
HOMER’S HYMN TO CASTOR AND POLLUX.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE MOON.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE SUN.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE EARTH: MOTHER OF ALL.
HOMER’S HYMN TO MINERVA.
HOMER’S HYMN TO VENUS.
THE CYCLOPS: A SATYRIC DRAMA. TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.
EPIGRAMS:
1. TO STELLA. FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
2. KISSING HELENA. FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
3. SPIRIT OF PLATO. FROM THE GREEK.
4. CIRCUMSTANCE. FROM THE GREEK.
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS. FROM THE GREEK OF BION.
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION. FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
PAN, ECHO, AND THE SATYR. FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
FROM VERGIL’S TENTH ECLOGUE.
THE SAME.
FROM VERGIL’S FOURTH GEORGIC.
SONNET. FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
THE FIRST CANZONE OF THE “CONVITO”. FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
MATILDA GATHERING FLOWERS. FROM THE “PURGATORIO” OF DANTE.
FRAGMENT. ADAPTED FROM THE “VITA NUOVA” OF DANTE.
UGOLINO. “INFERNO”, 33, 22-75, TRANSLATED BY MEDWIN AND CORRECTED BY SHELLEY.
SONNET. FROM THE ITALIAN OF CAVALCANTI.
SCENES FROM THE “MAGICO PRODIGIOSO”. FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON.
STANZAS FROM CALDERON’S “CISMA DE INGLETERRA”.
SCENES FROM THE “FAUST” OF GOETHE.
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB. A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM. TO HARRIET ******. QUEEN MAB. SHELLEY’S NOTES. NOTE BY MRS. SHELLEY.
VERSES ON A CAT.
FRAGMENT: OMENS.
EPITAPHIUM [LATIN VERSION OF THE EPITAPH IN GRAY’S “ELEGY”].
IN HOROLOGIUM.
A DIALOGUE.
TO THE MOONBEAM.
THE SOLITARY.
TO DEATH.
LOVE’S ROSE.
EYES: A FRAGMENT.
ORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND CAZIRE.
1. ‘HERE I SIT WITH MY PAPER, MY PEN AND MY INK’.
2. TO MISS — — [HARRIET GROVE] FROM MISS — — [ELIZABETH SHELLEY].
3. SONG: ‘COLD, COLD IS THE BLAST’.
4. SONG: ‘COME [HARRIET]! SWEET IS THE HOUR’.
5. SONG: DESPAIR.
6. SONG: SORROW.
7. SONG: HOPE.
8. SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN.
9. SONG: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.
10. THE IRISHMAN’S SONG.
11. SONG: ‘FIERCE ROARS THE MIDNIGHT STORM’.
12. SONG: TO — [HARRIET].
13. SONG: TO — [HARRIET].
14. SAINT EDMOND’S EVE.
15. REVENGE.
16. GHASTA; OR, THE AVENGING DEMON.
17. FRAGMENT; OR, THE TRIUMPH OF CONSCIENCE.
POEMS FROM ST. IRVYNE; OR, THE ROSICRUCIAN.
1. VICTORIA.
2. ‘ON THE DARK HEIGHT OF JURA’.
3. SISTER ROSA. A BALLAD.
4. ST. IRVYNE’S TOWER.
5. BEREAVEMENT.
6. THE DROWNED LOVER.
POSTHUMOUS FRAGMENTS OF MARGARET NICHOLSON.
ADVERTISEMENT.
WAR.
FRAGMENT: SUPPOSED TO BE AN EPITHALAMIUM OF FRANCIS RAVAILLAC AND CHARLOTTE CORDAY.
DESPAIR.
FRAGMENT.
THE SPECTRAL HORSEMAN.
MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES.
STANZA FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE MARSEILLAISE HYMN.
BIGOTRY’S VICTIM.
ON AN ICICLE THAT CLUNG TO THE GRASS OF A GRAVE.
LOVE.
ON A FETE AT CARLTON HOUSE: FRAGMENT.
TO A STAR.
TO MARY, WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.
A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS: FROM FACTS, 1811.
TO THE REPUBLICANS OF NORTH AMERICA.
TO IRELAND.
ON ROBERT EMMET’S GRAVE.
THE RETROSPECT: CWM ELAN, 1812.
FRAGMENT OF A SONNET: TO HARRIET.
TO HARRIET.
SONNET: TO A BALLOON LADEN WITH KNOWLEDGE.
SONNET: ON LAUNCHING SOME BOTTLES FILLED WITH KNOWLEDGE INTO THE BRISTOL CHANNEL.
THE DEVIL’S WALK.
FRAGMENT OF A SONNET: FAREWELL TO NORTH DEVON.
ON LEAVING LONDON FOR WALES.
THE WANDERING JEW’S SOLILOQUY.
EVENING: TO HARRIET.
TO IANTHE.
SONG FROM THE WANDERING JEW.
FRAGMENT FROM THE WANDERING JEW.
TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.
EDITOR’S NOTES.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF EDITIONS.
INDEX OF FIRST LINES.
***
TRANSLATIONS.
[Of the Translations that follow a few were published by Shelley himself, others by Mrs. Shelley in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, or the “Poetical Works”, 1839, and the remainder by Medwin (1834, 1847), Garnett (1862), Rossetti (1870), Forman (1876) and Locock (1903) from the manuscript originals. Shelley’s “Translations” fall between the years 1818 and 1822.]
HYMN TO MERCURY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. This alone of the “Translations” is included in the Harvard manuscript book. ‘Fragments of the drafts of this and the other Hymns of Homer exist among the Boscombe manuscripts’ (Forman).]
1. Sing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove, The Herald-child, king of Arcadia And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love Having been interwoven, modest May Bore Heaven’s dread Supreme. An antique grove _5 Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men, And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.
2. Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling, And Heaven’s tenth moon chronicled her relief, _10 She gave to light a babe all babes excelling, A schemer subtle beyond all belief; A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing, A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who ‘mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, _15 And other glorious actions to achieve.
3. The babe was born at the first peep of day; He began playing on the lyre at noon, And the same evening did he steal away Apollo’s herds;—the fourth day of the moon _20 On which him bore the venerable May, From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon, Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep, But out to seek Apollo’s herds would creep.
4. Out of the lofty cavern wandering _25 He found a tortoise, and cried out—‘A treasure!’ (For Mercury first made the tortoise sing) The beast before the portal at his leisure The flowery herbage was depasturing, Moving his feet in a deliberate measure _30 Over the turf. Jove’s profitable son Eying him laughed, and laughing thus begun:—
5. ‘A useful godsend are you to me now, King of the dance, companion of the feast, Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you _35 Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain-beast, Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know, You must come home with me and be my guest; You will give joy to me, and I will do All that is in my power to honour you. _40
6. ‘Better to be at home than out of door, So come with me; and though it has been said That you alive defend from magic power, I know you will sing sweetly when you’re dead.’ Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore, _45 Lifting it from the grass on which it fed And grasping it in his delighted hold, His treasured prize into the cavern old.
7. Then scooping with a chisel of gray steel, He bored the life and soul out of the beast.— _50 Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal Darts through the tumult of a human breast Which thronging cares annoy—not swifter wheel The flashes of its torture and unrest Out of the dizzy eyes—than Maia’s son _55 All that he did devise hath featly done.
8. ... And through the tortoise’s hard stony skin At proper distances small holes he made, And fastened the cut stems of reeds within, And with a piece of leather overlaid _60 The open space and fixed the cubits in, Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o’er all Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical.
9. When he had wrought the lovely instrument, He tried the chords, and made division meet, _65 Preluding with the plectrum, and there went Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent A strain of unpremeditated wit Joyous and wild and wanton—such you may _70 Hear among revellers on a holiday.
10. He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal Dallied in love not quite legitimate; And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal, And naming his own name, did celebrate; _75 His mother’s cave and servant maids he planned all In plastic verse, her household stuff and state, Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,— But singing, he conceived another plan.
11. ... Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, _80 He in his sacred crib deposited The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain’s head, Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might _85 Devise in the lone season of dun night.
12. Lo! the great Sun under the ocean’s bed has Driven steeds and chariot—the child meanwhile strode O’er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God _90 Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows, And safely stalled in a remote abode.— The archer Argicide, elate and proud, Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.
13. He drove them wandering o’er the sandy way, _95 But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft; His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray, And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft _100 Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs, And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.
14. And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, _105 Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pieria’s mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass.
15. The old man stood dressing his sunny vine: _110 ‘Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder! You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine Methinks even you must grow a little older: Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine, As you would ‘scape what might appal a bolder— _115 Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and— If you have understanding—understand.’
16. So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast; O’er shadowy mountain and resounding dell, And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed; _120 Till the black night divine, which favouring fell Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast Wakened the world to work, and from her cell Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime Into her watch-tower just began to climb. _125
17. Now to Alpheus he had driven all The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall And to the water-troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields—and when with rushgrass tall, _130 Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one Had pastured been, the great God made them move Towards the stall in a collected drove.
18. A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped, And having soon conceived the mystery _135 Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;—on high Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped And the divine child saw delightedly.— Mercury first found out for human weal _140 Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.
19. And fine dry logs and roots innumerous He gathered in a delve upon the ground— And kindled them—and instantaneous The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: _145 And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound, Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud, Close to the fire—such might was in the God.
20. And on the earth upon their backs he threw _150 The panting beasts, and rolled them o’er and o’er, And bored their lives out. Without more ado He cut up fat and flesh, and down before The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two, Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore _155 Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.
21. We mortals let an ox grow old, and then Cut it up after long consideration,— But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen _160 Drew the fat spoils to the more open station Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when He had by lot assigned to each a ration Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware Of all the joys which in religion are. _165
22. For the sweet savour of the roasted meat Tempted him though immortal. Natheless He checked his haughty will and did not eat, Though what it cost him words can scarce express, And every wish to put such morsels sweet _170 Down his most sacred throat, he did repress; But soon within the lofty portalled stall He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all.
23. And every trace of the fresh butchery And cooking, the God soon made disappear, _175 As if it all had vanished through the sky; He burned the hoofs and horns and head and hair,— The insatiate fire devoured them hungrily;— And when he saw that everything was clear, He quenched the coal, and trampled the black dust, _180 And in the stream his bloody sandals tossed.
24. All night he worked in the serene moonshine— But when the light of day was spread abroad He sought his natal mountain-peaks divine. On his long wandering, neither Man nor God _185 Had met him, since he killed Apollo’s kine, Nor house-dog had barked at him on his road; Now he obliquely through the keyhole passed, Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast.
25. Right through the temple of the spacious cave _190 He went with soft light feet—as if his tread Fell not on earth; no sound their falling gave; Then to his cradle he crept quick, and spread The swaddling-clothes about him; and the knave Lay playing with the covering of the bed _195 With his left hand about his knees—the right Held his beloved tortoise-lyre tight.
26. There he lay innocent as a new-born child, As gossips say; but though he was a God, The Goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled, _200 Knew all that he had done being abroad: ‘Whence come you, and from what adventure wild, You cunning rogue, and where have you abode All the long night, clothed in your impudence? What have you done since you departed hence? _205
27. ‘Apollo soon will pass within this gate And bind your tender body in a chain Inextricably tight, and fast as fate, Unless you can delude the God again, Even when within his arms—ah, runagate! _210 A pretty torment both for Gods and Men Your father made when he made you!’—‘Dear mother,’ Replied sly Hermes, ‘wherefore scold and bother?
28. ‘As if I were like other babes as old, And understood nothing of what is what; _215 And cared at all to hear my mother scold. I in my subtle brain a scheme have got, Which whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled Will profit you and me—nor shall our lot Be as you counsel, without gifts or food, _220 To spend our lives in this obscure abode.
29 ‘But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave And live among the Gods, and pass each day In high communion, sharing what they have Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey; _225 And from the portion which my father gave To Phoebus, I will snatch my share away, Which if my father will not—natheless I, Who am the king of robbers, can but try.
30. ‘And, if Latona’s son should find me out, _230 I’ll countermine him by a deeper plan; I’ll pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout, And sack the fane of everything I can— Caldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt, Each golden cup and polished brazen pan, _235 All the wrought tapestries and garments gay.’— So they together talked;—meanwhile the Day
31. Aethereal born arose out of the flood Of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men. Apollo passed toward the sacred wood, _240 Which from the inmost depths of its green glen Echoes the voice of Neptune,—and there stood On the same spot in green Onchestus then That same old animal, the vine-dresser, Who was employed hedging his vineyard there. _245
32. Latona’s glorious Son began:—‘I pray Tell, ancient hedger of Onchestus green, Whether a drove of kine has passed this way, All heifers with crooked horns? for they have been Stolen from the herd in high Pieria, _250 Where a black bull was fed apart, between Two woody mountains in a neighbouring glen, And four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men.
33. ‘And what is strange, the author of this theft Has stolen the fatted heifers every one, _255 But the four dogs and the black bull are left:— Stolen they were last night at set of sun, Of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft.— Now tell me, man born ere the world begun, Have you seen any one pass with the cows?’— _260 To whom the man of overhanging brows:
34. ‘My friend, it would require no common skill Justly to speak of everything I see: On various purposes of good or ill Many pass by my vineyard,—and to me _265 ’Tis difficult to know the invisible Thoughts, which in all those many minds may be:— Thus much alone I certainly can say, I tilled these vines till the decline of day,
35. ‘And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak _270 With certainty of such a wondrous thing, A child, who could not have been born a week, Those fair-horned cattle closely following, And in his hand he held a polished stick: And, as on purpose, he walked wavering _275 From one side to the other of the road, And with his face opposed the steps he trod.’
36. Apollo hearing this, passed quickly on— No winged omen could have shown more clear That the deceiver was his father’s son. _280 So the God wraps a purple atmosphere Around his shoulders, and like fire is gone To famous Pylos, seeking his kine there, And found their track and his, yet hardly cold, And cried—‘What wonder do mine eyes behold! _285
37. ‘Here are the footsteps of the horned herd Turned back towards their fields of asphodel;— But THESE are not the tracks of beast or bird, Gray wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell, Or maned Centaur—sand was never stirred _290 By man or woman thus! Inexplicable! Who with unwearied feet could e’er impress The sand with such enormous vestiges?
38. ‘That was most strange—but this is stranger still!’ Thus having said, Phoebus impetuously _295 Sought high Cyllene’s forest-cinctured hill, And the deep cavern where dark shadows lie, And where the ambrosial nymph with happy will Bore the Saturnian’s love-child, Mercury— And a delightful odour from the dew _300 Of the hill pastures, at his coming, flew.
39. And Phoebus stooped under the craggy roof Arched over the dark cavern:—Maia’s child Perceived that he came angry, far aloof, About the cows of which he had been beguiled; _305 And over him the fine and fragrant woof Of his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piled— As among fire-brands lies a burning spark Covered, beneath the ashes cold and dark.
40. There, like an infant who had sucked his fill _310 And now was newly washed and put to bed, Awake, but courting sleep with weary will, And gathered in a lump, hands, feet, and head, He lay, and his beloved tortoise still He grasped and held under his shoulder-blade. _315 Phoebus the lovely mountain-goddess knew, Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who
41. Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook Of the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo Looked sharp; and when he saw them not, he took _320 The glittering key, and opened three great hollow Recesses in the rock—where many a nook Was filled with the sweet food immortals swallow, And mighty heaps of silver and of gold Were piled within—a wonder to behold! _325
42. And white and silver robes, all overwrought With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet— Except among the Gods there can be nought In the wide world to be compared with it. Latona’s offspring, after having sought _330 His herds in every corner, thus did greet Great Hermes:—‘Little cradled rogue, declare Of my illustrious heifers, where they are!
43. ‘Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us Must rise, and the event will be, that I _335 Shall hurl you into dismal Tartarus, In fiery gloom to dwell eternally; Nor shall your father nor your mother loose The bars of that black dungeon—utterly You shall be cast out from the light of day, _340 To rule the ghosts of men, unblessed as they.
44. To whom thus Hermes slily answered:—‘Son Of great Latona, what a speech is this! Why come you here to ask me what is done With the wild oxen which it seems you miss? _345 I have not seen them, nor from any one Have heard a word of the whole business; If you should promise an immense reward, I could not tell more than you now have heard.
45. ‘An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong, _350 And I am but a little new-born thing, Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:— My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling The cradle-clothes about me all day long,— Or half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing, _355 And to be washed in water clean and warm, And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm.
46. ‘O, let not e’er this quarrel be averred! The astounded Gods would laugh at you, if e’er You should allege a story so absurd _360 As that a new-born infant forth could fare Out of his home after a savage herd. I was born yesterday—my small feet are Too tender for the roads so hard and rough:— And if you think that this is not enough, _365
47. I swear a great oath, by my father’s head, That I stole not your cows, and that I know Of no one else, who might, or could, or did.— Whatever things cows are, I do not know, For I have only heard the name.’—This said _370 He winked as fast as could be, and his brow Was wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he, Like one who hears some strange absurdity.
48. Apollo gently smiled and said:—‘Ay, ay,— You cunning little rascal, you will bore _375 Many a rich man’s house, and your array Of thieves will lay their siege before his door, Silent as night, in night; and many a day In the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore That you or yours, having an appetite, _380 Met with their cattle, comrade of the night!
49. ‘And this among the Gods shall be your gift, To be considered as the lord of those Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;— But now if you would not your last sleep doze; _385 Crawl out!’—Thus saying, Phoebus did uplift The subtle infant in his swaddling clothes, And in his arms, according to his wont, A scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont.
50. ... ... And sneezed and shuddered—Phoebus on the grass _390 Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed He did perform—eager although to pass, Apollo darted from his mighty mind Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:— ‘Do not imagine this will get you off, _395
51. ‘You little swaddled child of Jove and May! And seized him:—‘By this omen I shall trace My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.’— Cyllenian Hermes from the grassy place, Like one in earnest haste to get away, _400 Rose, and with hands lifted towards his face Round both his ears up from his shoulders drew His swaddling clothes, and—‘What mean you to do
52. ‘With me, you unkind God?’—said Mercury: ‘Is it about these cows you tease me so? _405 I wish the race of cows were perished!—I Stole not your cows—I do not even know What things cows are. Alas! I well may sigh That since I came into this world of woe, I should have ever heard the name of one— _410 But I appeal to the Saturnian’s throne.’
53. Thus Phoebus and the vagrant Mercury Talked without coming to an explanation, With adverse purpose. As for Phoebus, he Sought not revenge, but only information, _415 And Hermes tried with lies and roguery To cheat Apollo.—But when no evasion Served—for the cunning one his match had found— He paced on first over the sandy ground.
54. ... He of the Silver Bow the child of Jove _420 Followed behind, till to their heavenly Sire Came both his children, beautiful as Love, And from his equal balance did require A judgement in the cause wherein they strove. O’er odorous Olympus and its snows _425 A murmuring tumult as they came arose,—
55. And from the folded depths of the great Hill, While Hermes and Apollo reverent stood Before Jove’s throne, the indestructible Immortals rushed in mighty multitude; _430 And whilst their seats in order due they fill, The lofty Thunderer in a careless mood To Phoebus said:—‘Whence drive you this sweet prey, This herald-baby, born but yesterday?—
56. ‘A most important subject, trifler, this _435 To lay before the Gods!’—‘Nay, Father, nay, When you have understood the business, Say not that I alone am fond of prey. I found this little boy in a recess Under Cyllene’s mountains far away— _440 A manifest and most apparent thief, A scandalmonger beyond all belief.
57. ‘I never saw his like either in Heaven Or upon earth for knavery or craft:— Out of the field my cattle yester-even, _445 By the low shore on which the loud sea laughed, He right down to the river-ford had driven; And mere astonishment would make you daft To see the double kind of footsteps strange He has impressed wherever he did range. _450
58. ‘The cattle’s track on the black dust, full well Is evident, as if they went towards The place from which they came—that asphodel Meadow, in which I feed my many herds,— HIS steps were most incomprehensible— _455 I know not how I can describe in words Those tracks—he could have gone along the sands Neither upon his feet nor on his hands;—
59. ‘He must have had some other stranger mode Of moving on: those vestiges immense, _460 Far as I traced them on the sandy road, Seemed like the trail of oak-toppings:—but thence No mark nor track denoting where they trod The hard ground gave:—but, working at his fence, A mortal hedger saw him as he passed _465 To Pylos, with the cows, in fiery haste.
60. ‘I found that in the dark he quietly Had sacrificed some cows, and before light Had thrown the ashes all dispersedly About the road—then, still as gloomy night, _470 Had crept into his cradle, either eye Rubbing, and cogitating some new sleight. No eagle could have seen him as he lay Hid in his cavern from the peering day.
61. ‘I taxed him with the fact, when he averred _475 Most solemnly that he did neither see Nor even had in any manner heard Of my lost cows, whatever things cows be; Nor could he tell, though offered a reward, Not even who could tell of them to me.’ _480 So speaking, Phoebus sate; and Hermes then Addressed the Supreme Lord of Gods and Men:—
62. ‘Great Father, you know clearly beforehand That all which I shall say to you is sooth; I am a most veracious person, and _485 Totally unacquainted with untruth. At sunrise Phoebus came, but with no band Of Gods to bear him witness, in great wrath, To my abode, seeking his heifers there, And saying that I must show him where they are, _490
63. ‘Or he would hurl me down the dark abyss. I know that every Apollonian limb Is clothed with speed and might and manliness, As a green bank with flowers—but unlike him I was born yesterday, and you may guess _495 He well knew this when he indulged the whim Of bullying a poor little new-born thing That slept, and never thought of cow-driving.
64. ‘Am I like a strong fellow who steals kine? Believe me, dearest Father—such you are— _500 This driving of the herds is none of mine; Across my threshold did I wander ne’er, So may I thrive! I reverence the divine Sun and the Gods, and I love you, and care Even for this hard accuser—who must know _505 I am as innocent as they or you.
65. ‘I swear by these most gloriously-wrought portals (It is, you will allow, an oath of might) Through which the multitude of the Immortals Pass and repass forever, day and night, _510 Devising schemes for the affairs of mortals— I am guiltless; and I will requite, Although mine enemy be great and strong, His cruel threat—do thou defend the young!’
66. So speaking, the Cyllenian Argiphont _515 Winked, as if now his adversary was fitted:— And Jupiter, according to his wont, Laughed heartily to hear the subtle-witted Infant give such a plausible account, And every word a lie. But he remitted _520 Judgement at present—and his exhortation Was, to compose the affair by arbitration.
67. And they by mighty Jupiter were bidden To go forth with a single purpose both, Neither the other chiding nor yet chidden: _525 And Mercury with innocence and truth To lead the way, and show where he had hidden The mighty heifers.—Hermes, nothing loth, Obeyed the Aegis-bearer’s will—for he Is able to persuade all easily. _530
68. These lovely children of Heaven’s highest Lord Hastened to Pylos and the pastures wide And lofty stalls by the Alphean ford, Where wealth in the mute night is multiplied With silent growth. Whilst Hermes drove the herd _535 Out of the stony cavern, Phoebus spied The hides of those the little babe had slain, Stretched on the precipice above the plain.
69. ‘How was it possible,’ then Phoebus said, ‘That you, a little child, born yesterday, _540 A thing on mother’s milk and kisses fed, Could two prodigious heifers ever flay? Even I myself may well hereafter dread Your prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May, When you grow strong and tall.’—He spoke, and bound _545 Stiff withy bands the infant’s wrists around.
70. He might as well have bound the oxen wild; The withy bands, though starkly interknit, Fell at the feet of the immortal child, Loosened by some device of his quick wit. _550 Phoebus perceived himself again beguiled, And stared—while Hermes sought some hole or pit, Looking askance and winking fast as thought, Where he might hide himself and not be caught.
71. Sudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill _555 Subdued the strong Latonian, by the might Of winning music, to his mightier will; His left hand held the lyre, and in his right The plectrum struck the chords—unconquerable Up from beneath his hand in circling flight _560 The gathering music rose—and sweet as Love The penetrating notes did live and move
72. Within the heart of great Apollo—he Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure. Close to his side stood harping fearlessly _565 The unabashed boy; and to the measure Of the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free His joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure Of his deep song, illustrating the birth Of the bright Gods, and the dark desert Earth: _570
73. And how to the Immortals every one A portion was assigned of all that is; But chief Mnemosyne did Maia’s son Clothe in the light of his loud melodies;— And, as each God was born or had begun, _575 He in their order due and fit degrees Sung of his birth and being—and did move Apollo to unutterable love.
74. These words were winged with his swift delight: ‘You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you _580 Deserve that fifty oxen should requite Such minstrelsies as I have heard even now. Comrade of feasts, little contriving wight, One of your secrets I would gladly know, Whether the glorious power you now show forth _585 Was folded up within you at your birth,
75. ‘Or whether mortal taught or God inspired The power of unpremeditated song? Many divinest sounds have I admired, The Olympian Gods and mortal men among; _590 But such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired, And soul-awakening music, sweet and strong, Yet did I never hear except from thee, Offspring of May, impostor Mercury!
76. ‘What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use, _595 What exercise of subtlest art, has given Thy songs such power?—for those who hear may choose From three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven, Delight, and love, and sleep,—sweet sleep, whose dews Are sweeter than the balmy tears of even:— _600 And I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo Whom the Olympian Muses ever follow:
77. ‘And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise Of song and overflowing poesy; And sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice _605 Of pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly; But never did my inmost soul rejoice In this dear work of youthful revelry As now. I wonder at thee, son of Jove; Thy harpings and thy song are soft as love. _610
78. ‘Now since thou hast, although so very small, Science of arts so glorious, thus I swear,— And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall, Witness between us what I promise here,— That I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall, _615 Honoured and mighty, with thy mother dear, And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee, And even at the end will ne’er deceive thee.’
79. To whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:— ‘Wisely hast thou inquired of my skill: _620 I envy thee no thing I know to teach Even this day:—for both in word and will I would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach All things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill Is highest in Heaven among the sons of Jove, _625 Who loves thee in the fulness of his love.
80. ‘The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee Divinest gifts, out of the amplitude Of his profuse exhaustless treasury; By thee, ’tis said, the depths are understood _630 Of his far voice; by thee the mystery Of all oracular fates,—and the dread mood Of the diviner is breathed up; even I— A child—perceive thy might and majesty.
81. ‘Thou canst seek out and compass all that wit _635 Can find or teach;—yet since thou wilt, come take The lyre—be mine the glory giving it— Strike the sweet chords, and sing aloud, and wake Thy joyous pleasure out of many a fit Of tranced sound—and with fleet fingers make _640 Thy liquid-voiced comrade talk with thee,— It can talk measured music eloquently.
82. ‘Then bear it boldly to the revel loud, Love-wakening dance, or feast of solemn state, A joy by night or day—for those endowed _645 With art and wisdom who interrogate It teaches, babbling in delightful mood All things which make the spirit most elate, Soothing the mind with sweet familiar play, Chasing the heavy shadows of dismay. _650
83. ‘To those who are unskilled in its sweet tongue, Though they should question most impetuously Its hidden soul, it gossips something wrong— Some senseless and impertinent reply. But thou who art as wise as thou art strong _655 Canst compass all that thou desirest. I Present thee with this music-flowing shell, Knowing thou canst interrogate it well.
84. ‘And let us two henceforth together feed, On this green mountain-slope and pastoral plain, _660 The herds in litigation—they will breed Quickly enough to recompense our pain, If to the bulls and cows we take good heed;— And thou, though somewhat over fond of gain, Grudge me not half the profit.’—Having spoke, _665 The shell he proffered, and Apollo took;
85. And gave him in return the glittering lash, Installing him as herdsman;—from the look Of Mercury then laughed a joyous flash. And then Apollo with the plectrum strook _670 The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook The soul with sweetness, and like an adept His sweeter voice a just accordance kept.
86. The herd went wandering o’er the divine mead, _675 Whilst these most beautiful Sons of Jupiter Won their swift way up to the snowy head Of white Olympus, with the joyous lyre Soothing their journey; and their father dread Gathered them both into familiar _680 Affection sweet,—and then, and now, and ever, Hermes must love Him of the Golden Quiver,
87. To whom he gave the lyre that sweetly sounded, Which skilfully he held and played thereon. He piped the while, and far and wide rebounded _685 The echo of his pipings; every one Of the Olympians sat with joy astounded; While he conceived another piece of fun, One of his old tricks—which the God of Day Perceiving, said:—‘I fear thee, Son of May;— _690
88. ‘I fear thee and thy sly chameleon spirit, Lest thou should steal my lyre and crooked bow; This glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit, To teach all craft upon the earth below; Thieves love and worship thee—it is thy merit _695 To make all mortal business ebb and flow By roguery:—now, Hermes, if you dare By sacred Styx a mighty oath to swear
89. ‘That you will never rob me, you will do A thing extremely pleasing to my heart.’ _700 Then Mercury swore by the Stygian dew, That he would never steal his bow or dart, Or lay his hands on what to him was due, Or ever would employ his powerful art Against his Pythian fane. Then Phoebus swore _705 There was no God or Man whom he loved more.
90. ‘And I will give thee as a good-will token, The beautiful wand of wealth and happiness; A perfect three-leaved rod of gold unbroken, Whose magic will thy footsteps ever bless; _710 And whatsoever by Jove’s voice is spoken Of earthly or divine from its recess, It, like a loving soul, to thee will speak, And more than this, do thou forbear to seek.
91. ‘For, dearest child, the divinations high _715 Which thou requirest, ’tis unlawful ever That thou, or any other deity Should understand—and vain were the endeavour; For they are hidden in Jove’s mind, and I, In trust of them, have sworn that I would never _720 Betray the counsels of Jove’s inmost will To any God—the oath was terrible.
92. ‘Then, golden-wanded brother, ask me not To speak the fates by Jupiter designed; But be it mine to tell their various lot _725 To the unnumbered tribes of human-kind. Let good to these, and ill to those be wrought As I dispense—but he who comes consigned By voice and wings of perfect augury To my great shrine, shall find avail in me. _730
93. ‘Him will I not deceive, but will assist; But he who comes relying on such birds As chatter vainly, who would strain and twist The purpose of the Gods with idle words, And deems their knowledge light, he shall have missed _735 His road—whilst I among my other hoards His gifts deposit. Yet, O son of May, I have another wondrous thing to say.
96. ‘There are three Fates, three virgin Sisters, who Rejoicing in their wind-outspeeding wings, _740 Their heads with flour snowed over white and new, Sit in a vale round which Parnassus flings Its circling skirts—from these I have learned true Vaticinations of remotest things. My father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms, _745 They sit apart and feed on honeycombs.
95. ‘They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter With earnest willingness the truth they know; But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter _750 All plausible delusions;—these to you I give;—if you inquire, they will not stutter; Delight your own soul with them:—any man You would instruct may profit if he can.
96. ‘Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia’s child— _755 O’er many a horse and toil-enduring mule, O’er jagged-jawed lions, and the wild White-tusked boars, o’er all, by field or pool, Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule— _760 Thou dost alone the veil from death uplift— Thou givest not—yet this is a great gift.’
97. Thus King Apollo loved the child of May In truth, and Jove covered their love with joy. Hermes with Gods and Men even from that day _765 Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy, And little profit, going far astray Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy, Of Jove and Maia sprung,—never by me, Nor thou, nor other songs, shall unremembered be. _770
NOTES: _13 cow-stealing]qy. cattle-stealing? _57 stony Boscombe manuscript. Harvard manuscript; strong edition 1824. _252 neighbouring]neighbour Harvard manuscript. _336 hurl Harvard manuscript, editions 1839; haul edition 1824. _402 Round]Roused edition 1824 only. _488 wrath]ruth Harvard manuscript. _580 heifer-stealing]heifer-killing Harvard manuscript. _673 and like 1839, 1st edition; as of edition 1824, Harvard manuscript. _713 loving]living cj. Rossetti. _761 from Harvard manuscript; of editions 1824, 1839. _764 their love with joy Harvard manuscript; them with love and joy, editions 1824, 1839. _767 going]wandering Harvard manuscript.
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO CASTOR AND POLLUX.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]
Ye wild-eyed Muses, sing the Twins of Jove, Whom the fair-ankled Leda, mixed in love With mighty Saturn’s Heaven-obscuring Child, On Taygetus, that lofty mountain wild, Brought forth in joy: mild Pollux, void of blame, _5 And steed-subduing Castor, heirs of fame. These are the Powers who earth-born mortals save And ships, whose flight is swift along the wave. When wintry tempests o’er the savage sea Are raging, and the sailors tremblingly _10 Call on the Twins of Jove with prayer and vow, Gathered in fear upon the lofty prow, And sacrifice with snow-white lambs,—the wind And the huge billow bursting close behind, Even then beneath the weltering waters bear _15 The staggering ship—they suddenly appear, On yellow wings rushing athwart the sky, And lull the blasts in mute tranquillity, And strew the waves on the white Ocean’s bed, Fair omen of the voyage; from toil and dread _20 The sailors rest, rejoicing in the sight, And plough the quiet sea in safe delight.
NOTE: _6 steed-subduing emend. Rossetti; steel-subduing 1839, 2nd edition.
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE MOON.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]
Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody, Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth, From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth, Far light is scattered—boundless glory springs; _5 Where’er she spreads her many-beaming wings The lampless air glows round her golden crown.
But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone Under the sea, her beams within abide, Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean’s tide, _10 Clothing her form in garments glittering far, And having yoked to her immortal car The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky A western Crescent, borne impetuously. _15 Then is made full the circle of her light, And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then, A wonder and a sign to mortal men.
The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power _20 Mingled in love and sleep—to whom she bore Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.
Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity, Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee _25 My song beginning, by its music sweet Shall make immortal many a glorious feat Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE SUN.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]
Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour; Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth; Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair _5 Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear A race of loveliest children; the young Morn, Whose arms are like twin roses newly born, The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun, Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run _10 Unconquerably, illuming the abodes Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods.
Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes, Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light; _15 His countenance, with radiant glory bright, Beneath his graceful locks far shines around, And the light vest with which his limbs are bound, Of woof aethereal delicately twined, Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind. _20 His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West; Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest, And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea.
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE EARTH: MOTHER OF ALL.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]
O universal Mother, who dost keep From everlasting thy foundations deep, Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee! All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea, All things that fly, or on the ground divine _5 Live, move, and there are nourished—these are thine; These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!
The life of mortal men beneath thy sway _10 Is held; thy power both gives and takes away! Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish; All things unstinted round them grow and flourish. For them, endures the life-sustaining field Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield _15 Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled. Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free, The homes of lovely women, prosperously; Their sons exult in youth’s new budding gladness, And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness, _20 With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song, On the soft flowers the meadow-grass among, Leap round them sporting—such delights by thee Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.
Mother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven, _25 Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given A happy life for this brief melody, Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO MINERVA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition; dated 1818.]
I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes, Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise, Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid, Revered and mighty; from his awful head Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed, _5 Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed The everlasting Gods that Shape to see, Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove; Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move _10 Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed; Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide; And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high In purple billows, the tide suddenly Stood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time _15 Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime, Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view. Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee, Nor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be. _20
***
HOMER’S HYMN TO VENUS.
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1818.]
[VERSES 1-55, WITH SOME OMISSIONS.]
Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite, Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things That fleet along the air, or whom the sea, _5 Or earth, with her maternal ministry, Nourish innumerable, thy delight All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite! Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell:— Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well _10 Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame. Diana ... golden-shafted queen, Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green Of the wild woods, the bow, the... _15 And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit Of beasts among waste mountains,—such delight Is hers, and men who know and do the right. Nor Saturn’s first-born daughter, Vesta chaste, Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last, _20 Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove; But sternly she refused the ills of Love, And by her mighty Father’s head she swore An oath not unperformed, that evermore A virgin she would live mid deities _25 Divine: her father, for such gentle ties Renounced, gave glorious gifts—thus in his hall She sits and feeds luxuriously. O’er all In every fane, her honours first arise From men—the eldest of Divinities. _30
These spirits she persuades not, nor deceives, But none beside escape, so well she weaves Her unseen toils; nor mortal men, nor gods Who live secure in their unseen abodes. She won the soul of him whose fierce delight _35 Is thunder—first in glory and in might. And, as she willed, his mighty mind deceiving, With mortal limbs his deathless limbs inweaving, Concealed him from his spouse and sister fair, Whom to wise Saturn ancient Rhea bare. _40 but in return, In Venus Jove did soft desire awaken, That by her own enchantments overtaken, She might, no more from human union free, Burn for a nursling of mortality. _45 For once amid the assembled Deities, The laughter-loving Venus from her eyes
Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile, And boasting said, that she, secure the while, Could bring at Will to the assembled Gods _50 The mortal tenants of earth’s dark abodes, And mortal offspring from a deathless stem She could produce in scorn and spite of them. Therefore he poured desire into her breast Of young Anchises, _55 Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains Of the wide Ida’s many-folded mountains,— Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung Like wasting fire her senses wild among.
***
THE CYCLOPS.
A SATYRIC DRAMA TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; dated 1819. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian there is a copy, ‘practically complete,’ which has been collated by Mr. C.D. Locock. See “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 64-70. ‘Though legible throughout, and comparatively free from corrections, it has the appearance of being a first draft’ (Locock).]
SILENUS. ULYSSES. CHORUS OF SATYRS. THE CYCLOPS.
SILENUS: O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now And ere these limbs were overworn with age, Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled’st The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee; _5 Then in the battle of the Sons of Earth, When I stood foot by foot close to thy side, No unpropitious fellow-combatant, And, driving through his shield my winged spear, Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now, _10 Is it a dream of which I speak to thee? By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies! And now I suffer more than all before. For when I heard that Juno had devised A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea _15 With all my children quaint in search of you, And I myself stood on the beaked prow And fixed the naked mast; and all my boys Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain Made white with foam the green and purple sea,— _20 And so we sought you, king. We were sailing Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose, And drove us to this waste Aetnean rock; The one-eyed children of the Ocean God, The man-destroying Cyclopses, inhabit, _25 On this wild shore, their solitary caves, And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us To be his slaves; and so, for all delight Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody, We keep this lawless giant’s wandering flocks. _30 My sons indeed on far declivities, Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep, But I remain to fill the water-casks, Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering Some impious and abominable meal _35 To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it! And now I must scrape up the littered floor With this great iron rake, so to receive My absent master and his evening sheep In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see _40 My children tending the flocks hitherward. Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures Even now the same, as when with dance and song You brought young Bacchus to Althaea’s halls?
NOTE: _23 waste B.; wild 1824; ‘cf. 26, where waste is cancelled for wild’ (Locock).
CHORUS OF SATYRS:
STROPHE: Where has he of race divine _45 Wandered in the winding rocks? Here the air is calm and fine For the father of the flocks;— Here the grass is soft and sweet, And the river-eddies meet _50 In the trough beside the cave, Bright as in their fountain wave.— Neither here, nor on the dew Of the lawny uplands feeding? Oh, you come!—a stone at you _55 Will I throw to mend your breeding;— Get along, you horned thing, Wild, seditious, rambling!
EPODE: An Iacchic melody To the golden Aphrodite _60 Will I lift, as erst did I Seeking her and her delight With the Maenads, whose white feet To the music glance and fleet. Bacchus, O beloved, where, _65 Shaking wide thy yellow hair, Wanderest thou alone, afar? To the one-eyed Cyclops, we, Who by right thy servants are, Minister in misery, _70 In these wretched goat-skins clad, Far from thy delights and thee.
SILENUS: Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive The gathered flocks into the rock-roofed cave.
CHORUS: Go! But what needs this serious haste, O father? _75
SILENUS: I see a Grecian vessel on the coast, And thence the rowers with some general Approaching to this cave.—About their necks Hang empty vessels, as they wanted food, And water-flasks.—Oh, miserable strangers! _80 Whence come they, that they know not what and who My master is, approaching in ill hour The inhospitable roof of Polypheme, And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying? Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear _85 Whence coming, they arrive the Aetnean hill.
ULYSSES: Friends, can you show me some clear water-spring, The remedy of our thirst? Will any one Furnish with food seamen in want of it? Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived _90 At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves. First let me greet the elder.—Hail!
SILENUS: Hail thou, O Stranger! tell thy country and thy race.
ULYSSES: The Ithacan Ulysses and the king _95 Of Cephalonia.
SILENUS: Oh! I know the man, Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.
ULYSSES: I am the same, but do not rail upon me.—
SILENUS: Whence sailing do you come to Sicily?
ULYSSES: From Ilion, and from the Trojan toils. _100
SILENUS: How, touched you not at your paternal shore?
ULYSSES: The strength of tempests bore me here by force.
SILENUS: The self-same accident occurred to me.
ULYSSES: Were you then driven here by stress of weather?
SILENUS: Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus. _105
ULYSSES: What land is this, and who inhabit it?—
SILENUS: Aetna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.
ULYSSES: And are there walls, and tower-surrounded towns?
SILENUS: There are not.—These lone rocks are bare of men.
ULYSSES: And who possess the land? the race of beasts? _110
SILENUS: Cyclops, who live in caverns, not in houses.
ULYSSES: Obeying whom? Or is the state popular?
SILENUS: Shepherds: no one obeys any in aught.
ULYSSES: How live they? do they sow the corn of Ceres?
SILENUS: On milk and cheese, and on the flesh of sheep. _115
ULYSSES: Have they the Bromian drink from the vine’s stream?
SILENUS: Ah! no; they live in an ungracious land.
ULYSSES: And are they just to strangers?—hospitable?
SILENUS: They think the sweetest thing a stranger brings Is his own flesh.
ULYSSES: What! do they eat man’s flesh? _120
SILENUS: No one comes here who is not eaten up.
ULYSSES: The Cyclops now—where is he? Not at home?
SILENUS: Absent on Aetna, hunting with his dogs.
ULYSSES: Know’st thou what thou must do to aid us hence?
SILENUS: I know not: we will help you all we can. _125
ULYSSES: Provide us food, of which we are in want.
SILENUS: Here is not anything, as I said, but meat.
ULYSSES: But meat is a sweet remedy for hunger.
SILENUS: Cow’s milk there is, and store of curdled cheese.
ULYSSES: Bring out:—I would see all before I bargain. _130
SILENUS: But how much gold will you engage to give?
ULYSSES: I bring no gold, but Bacchic juice.
SILENUS: Oh, joy! Tis long since these dry lips were wet with wine.
ULYSSES: Maron, the son of the God, gave it me.
SILENUS: Whom I have nursed a baby in my arms. _135
ULYSSES: The son of Bacchus, for your clearer knowledge.
SILENUS: Have you it now?—or is it in the ship?
ULYSSES: Old man, this skin contains it, which you see.
SILENUS: Why, this would hardly be a mouthful for me.
ULYSSES: Nay, twice as much as you can draw from thence. _140
SILENUS: You speak of a fair fountain, sweet to me.
ULYSSES: Would you first taste of the unmingled wine?
SILENUS: ’Tis just—tasting invites the purchaser.
ULYSSES: Here is the cup, together with the skin.
SILENUS: Pour: that the draught may fillip my remembrance.
ULYSSES: See! _145
SILENUS: Papaiapax! what a sweet smell it has!
ULYSSES: You see it then?—
SILENUS: By Jove, no! but I smell it.
ULYSSES: Taste, that you may not praise it in words only.
SILENUS: Babai! Great Bacchus calls me forth to dance! Joy! joy!
ULYSSES: Did it flow sweetly down your throat? _150
SILENUS: So that it tingled to my very nails.
ULYSSES: And in addition I will give you gold.
SILENUS: Let gold alone! only unlock the cask.
ULYSSES: Bring out some cheeses now, or a young goat.
SILENUS: That will I do, despising any master. _155 Yes, let me drink one cup, and I will give All that the Cyclops feed upon their mountains.
...
CHORUS: Ye have taken Troy and laid your hands on Helen?
ULYSSES: And utterly destroyed the race of Priam.
...
SILENUS: The wanton wretch! she was bewitched to see _160 The many-coloured anklets and the chain Of woven gold which girt the neck of Paris, And so she left that good man Menelaus. There should be no more women in the world But such as are reserved for me alone.— _165 See, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses, Here are unsparing cheeses of pressed milk; Take them; depart with what good speed ye may; First leaving my reward, the Bacchic dew Of joy-inspiring grapes.
ULYSSES: Ah me! Alas! _170 What shall we do? the Cyclops is at hand! Old man, we perish! whither can we fly?
SILENUS: Hide yourselves quick within that hollow rock.
ULYSSES: ’Twere perilous to fly into the net.
SILENUS: The cavern has recesses numberless; _175 Hide yourselves quick.
ULYSSES: That will I never do! The mighty Troy would be indeed disgraced If I should fly one man. How many times Have I withstood, with shield immovable. Ten thousand Phrygians!—if I needs must die, _180 Yet will I die with glory;—if I live, The praise which I have gained will yet remain.
SILENUS: What, ho! assistance, comrades, haste, assistance!
[THE CYCLOPS, SILENUS, ULYSSES; CHORUS.]
CYCLOPS: What is this tumult? Bacchus is not here, Nor tympanies nor brazen castanets. _185 How are my young lambs in the cavern? Milking Their dams or playing by their sides? And is The new cheese pressed into the bulrush baskets? Speak! I’ll beat some of you till you rain tears— Look up, not downwards when I speak to you. _190
SILENUS: See! I now gape at Jupiter himself; I stare upon Orion and the stars.
CYCLOPS: Well, is the dinner fitly cooked and laid?
SILENUS: All ready, if your throat is ready too.
CYCLOPS: Are the bowls full of milk besides?
SILENUS: O’er-brimming; _195 So you may drink a tunful if you will.
CYCLOPS: Is it ewe’s milk or cow’s milk, or both mixed?—
SILENUS: Both, either; only pray don’t swallow me.
CYCLOPS: By no means.— ... What is this crowd I see beside the stalls? _200 Outlaws or thieves? for near my cavern-home I see my young lambs coupled two by two With willow bands; mixed with my cheeses lie Their implements; and this old fellow here Has his bald head broken with stripes.
SILENUS: Ah me! _205 I have been beaten till I burn with fever.
CYCLOPS: By whom? Who laid his fist upon your head?
SILENUS: Those men, because I would not suffer them To steal your goods.
CYCLOPS: Did not the rascals know I am a God, sprung from the race of Heaven? _210
SILENUS: I told them so, but they bore off your things, And ate the cheese in spite of all I said, And carried out the lambs—and said, moreover, They’d pin you down with a three-cubit collar, And pull your vitals out through your one eye, _215 Furrow your back with stripes, then, binding you, Throw you as ballast into the ship’s hold, And then deliver you, a slave, to move Enormous rocks, or found a vestibule.
NOTE: _216 Furrow B.; Torture (evidently misread for Furrow) 1824.
CYCLOPS: In truth? Nay, haste, and place in order quickly The cooking-knives, and heap upon the hearth, _221 And kindle it, a great faggot of wood.— As soon as they are slaughtered, they shall fill My belly, broiling warm from the live coals, Or boiled and seethed within the bubbling caldron. _225 I am quite sick of the wild mountain game; Of stags and lions I have gorged enough, And I grow hungry for the flesh of men.
SILENUS: Nay, master, something new is very pleasant After one thing forever, and of late _230 Very few strangers have approached our cave.
ULYSSES: Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side. We, wanting to buy food, came from our ship Into the neighbourhood of your cave, and here This old Silenus gave us in exchange _235 These lambs for wine, the which he took and drank, And all by mutual compact, without force. There is no word of truth in what he says, For slyly he was selling all your store.
SILENUS: I? May you perish, wretch—
ULYSSES: If I speak false! _240
SILENUS: Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee, By mighty Triton and by Nereus old, Calypso and the glaucous Ocean Nymphs, The sacred waves and all the race of fishes— Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master, _245 My darling little Cyclops, that I never Gave any of your stores to these false strangers;— If I speak false may those whom most I love, My children, perish wretchedly!
CHORUS: There stop! I saw him giving these things to the strangers. _250 If I speak false, then may my father perish, But do not thou wrong hospitality.
CYCLOPS: You lie! I swear that he is juster far Than Rhadamanthus—I trust more in him. But let me ask, whence have ye sailed, O strangers? _255 Who are you? And what city nourished ye?
ULYSSES: Our race is Ithacan—having destroyed The town of Troy, the tempests of the sea Have driven us on thy land, O Polypheme.
CYCLOPS: What, have ye shared in the unenvied spoil _260 Of the false Helen, near Scamander’s stream?
ULYSSES: The same, having endured a woful toil.
CYCLOPS: Oh, basest expedition! sailed ye not From Greece to Phrygia for one woman’s sake?
ULYSSES: ’Twas the Gods’ work—no mortal was in fault. _265 But, O great Offspring of the Ocean-King, We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom, That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee, And place no impious food within thy jaws. For in the depths of Greece we have upreared _270 Temples to thy great Father, which are all His homes. The sacred bay of Taenarus Remains inviolate, and each dim recess Scooped high on the Malean promontory, And aery Sunium’s silver-veined crag, _275 Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever, The Gerastian asylums, and whate’er Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept From Phrygian contumely; and in which You have a common care, for you inhabit _280 The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots Of Aetna and its crags, spotted with fire. Turn then to converse under human laws, Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts; _285 Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws. Priam’s wide land has widowed Greece enough; And weapon-winged murder leaped together Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, _290 And ancient women and gray fathers wail Their childless age;—if you should roast the rest— And ’tis a bitter feast that you prepare— Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded; Forgo the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer _295 Pious humanity to wicked will: Many have bought too dear their evil joys.
SILENUS: Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops. _300
CYCLOPS: Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man’s God, All other things are a pretence and boast. What are my father’s ocean promontories, The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me? Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove’s thunderbolt, _305 I know not that his strength is more than mine. As to the rest I care not.—When he pours Rain from above, I have a close pavilion Under this rock, in which I lie supine, Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast, _310 And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously Emulating the thunder of high Heaven. And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow, I wrap my body in the skins of beasts, Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on. _315 The earth, by force, whether it will or no, Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds, Which, to what other God but to myself And this great belly, first of deities, Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know _320 The wise man’s only Jupiter is this, To eat and drink during his little day, And give himself no care. And as for those Who complicate with laws the life of man, I freely give them tears for their reward. _325 I will not cheat my soul of its delight, Or hesitate in dining upon you:— And that I may be quit of all demands, These are my hospitable gifts;—fierce fire And yon ancestral caldron, which o’er-bubbling _330 Shall finely cook your miserable flesh. Creep in!—
...
ULYSSES: Ai! ai! I have escaped the Trojan toils, I have escaped the sea, and now I fall Under the cruel grasp of one impious man. _335 O Pallas, Mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove, Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy Are these;—I totter on the chasms of peril;— And thou who inhabitest the thrones Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove, _340 Upon this outrage of thy deity, Otherwise be considered as no God!
CHORUS (ALONE): For your gaping gulf and your gullet wide, The ravin is ready on every side, The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done; _345 There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal, You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun, An hairy goat’s-skin contains the whole. Let me but escape, and ferry me o’er The stream of your wrath to a safer shore. _350 The Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold, He murders the strangers That sit on his hearth, And dreads no avengers To rise from the earth. _355 He roasts the men before they are cold, He snatches them broiling from the coal, And from the caldron pulls them whole, And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone With his cursed teeth, till all be gone. _360 Farewell, foul pavilion: Farewell, rites of dread! The Cyclops vermilion, With slaughter uncloying, Now feasts on the dead, _365 In the flesh of strangers joying!
NOTE: _344 ravin Rossetti; spelt ravine in B., editions 1824, 1839.
ULYSSES: O Jupiter! I saw within the cave Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words, But not to be believed as being done.
NOTE: _369 not to be believed B.; not believed 1824.
CHORUS: What! sawest thou the impious Polypheme _370 Feasting upon your loved companions now?
ULYSSES: Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd, He grasped them in his hands.—
CHORUS: Unhappy man!
...
ULYSSES: Soon as we came into this craggy place, Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth _375 The knotty limbs of an enormous oak, Three waggon-loads at least, and then he strewed Upon the ground, beside the red firelight, His couch of pine-leaves; and he milked the cows, And pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl _380 Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much As would contain ten amphorae, and bound it With ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire A brazen pot to boil, and made red hot The points of spits, not sharpened with the sickle _385 But with a fruit tree bough, and with the jaws Of axes for Aetnean slaughterings. And when this God-abandoned Cook of Hell Had made all ready, he seized two of us And killed them in a kind of measured manner; _390 For he flung one against the brazen rivets Of the huge caldron, and seized the other By the foot’s tendon, and knocked out his brains Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone: Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking-knife _395 And put him down to roast. The other’s limbs He chopped into the caldron to be boiled. And I, with the tears raining from my eyes, Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him; The rest, in the recesses of the cave, _400 Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear. When he was filled with my companions’ flesh, He threw himself upon the ground and sent A loathsome exhalation from his maw. Then a divine thought came to me. I filled _405 The cup of Maron, and I offered him To taste, and said:—‘Child of the Ocean God, Behold what drink the vines of Greece produce, The exultation and the joy of Bacchus.’ He, satiated with his unnatural food, _410 Received it, and at one draught drank it off, And taking my hand, praised me:—‘Thou hast given A sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest.’ And I, perceiving that it pleased him, filled Another cup, well knowing that the wine _415 Would wound him soon and take a sure revenge. And the charm fascinated him, and I Plied him cup after cup, until the drink Had warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen _420 A hideous discord—and the cavern rung. I have stolen out, so that if you will You may achieve my safety and your own. But say, do you desire, or not, to fly This uncompanionable man, and dwell _425 As was your wont among the Grecian Nymphs Within the fanes of your beloved God? Your father there within agrees to it, But he is weak and overcome with wine, And caught as if with bird-lime by the cup, _430 He claps his wings and crows in doting joy. You who are young escape with me, and find Bacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he To this rude Cyclops.
NOTES: _382 ten cj. Swinburne; four 1824; four cancelled for ten (possibly) B. _387 I confess I do not understand this.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.] _416 take]grant (as alternative) B.
CHORUS: Oh my dearest friend, That I could see that day, and leave for ever _435 The impious Cyclops.
...
ULYSSES: Listen then what a punishment I have For this fell monster, how secure a flight From your hard servitude.
CHORUS: O sweeter far Than is the music of an Asian lyre _440 Would be the news of Polypheme destroyed.
ULYSSES: Delighted with the Bacchic drink he goes To call his brother Cyclops—who inhabit A village upon Aetna not far off.
CHORUS: I understand, catching him when alone _445 You think by some measure to dispatch him, Or thrust him from the precipice.
NOTE: _446 by some measure 1824; with some measures B.
ULYSSES: Oh no; Nothing of that kind; my device is subtle.
CHORUS: How then? I heard of old that thou wert wise.
ULYSSES: I will dissuade him from this plan, by saying _450 It were unwise to give the Cyclopses This precious drink, which if enjoyed alone Would make life sweeter for a longer time. When, vanquished by the Bacchic power, he sleeps, There is a trunk of olive wood within, _455 Whose point having made sharp with this good sword I will conceal in fire, and when I see It is alight, will fix it, burning yet, Within the socket of the Cyclops’ eye And melt it out with fire—as when a man _460 Turns by its handle a great auger round, Fitting the framework of a ship with beams, So will I, in the Cyclops’ fiery eye Turn round the brand and dry the pupil up.
CHORUS: Joy! I am mad with joy at your device. _465
ULYSSES: And then with you, my friends, and the old man, We’ll load the hollow depth of our black ship, And row with double strokes from this dread shore.
CHORUS: May I, as in libations to a God, Share in the blinding him with the red brand? _470 I would have some communion in his death.
ULYSSES: Doubtless: the brand is a great brand to hold.
CHORUS: Oh! I would lift an hundred waggon-loads, If like a wasp’s nest I could scoop the eye out Of the detested Cyclops.
ULYSSES: Silence now! _475 Ye know the close device—and when I call, Look ye obey the masters of the craft. I will not save myself and leave behind My comrades in the cave: I might escape, Having got clear from that obscure recess, _480 But ’twere unjust to leave in jeopardy The dear companions who sailed here with me.
CHORUS: Come! who is first, that with his hand Will urge down the burning brand Through the lids, and quench and pierce _485 The Cyclops’ eye so fiery fierce?
SEMICHORUS 1 [SONG WITHIN]: Listen! listen! he is coming, A most hideous discord humming. Drunken, museless, awkward, yelling, Far along his rocky dwelling; _490 Let us with some comic spell Teach the yet unteachable. By all means he must be blinded, If my counsel be but minded.
SEMICHORUS 2: Happy thou made odorous _495 With the dew which sweet grapes weep, To the village hastening thus, Seek the vines that soothe to sleep; Having first embraced thy friend, Thou in luxury without end, _500 With the strings of yellow hair, Of thy voluptuous leman fair, Shalt sit playing on a bed!— Speak! what door is opened?
NOTES: _495 thou cj. Swinburne, Rossetti; those 1824; ‘the word is doubtful in B.’ (Locock). _500 Thou B.; There 1824.
CYCLOPS: Ha! ha! ha! I’m full of wine, _505 Heavy with the joy divine, With the young feast oversated; Like a merchant’s vessel freighted To the water’s edge, my crop Is laden to the gullet’s top. _510 The fresh meadow grass of spring Tempts me forth thus wandering To my brothers on the mountains, Who shall share the wine’s sweet fountains. Bring the cask, O stranger, bring! _515
NOTE: _508 merchant’s 1824; merchant B.
CHORUS: One with eyes the fairest Cometh from his dwelling; Some one loves thee, rarest Bright beyond my telling. In thy grace thou shinest _520 Like some nymph divinest In her caverns dewy:— All delights pursue thee, Soon pied flowers, sweet-breathing, Shall thy head be wreathing. _525
ULYSSES: Listen, O Cyclops, for I am well skilled In Bacchus, whom I gave thee of to drink.
CYCLOPS: What sort of God is Bacchus then accounted?
ULYSSES: The greatest among men for joy of life.
CYCLOPS: I gulped him down with very great delight. _530
ULYSSES: This is a God who never injures men.
CYCLOPS: How does the God like living in a skin?
ULYSSES: He is content wherever he is put.
CYCLOPS: Gods should not have their body in a skin.
ULYSSES: If he gives joy, what is his skin to you? _535
CYCLOPS: I hate the skin, but love the wine within.
ULYSSES: Stay here now: drink, and make your spirit glad.
NOTE: _537 Stay here now, drink B.; stay here, now drink 1824.
CYCLOPS: Should I not share this liquor with my brothers?
ULYSSES: Keep it yourself, and be more honoured so.
CYCLOPS: I were more useful, giving to my friends. _540
ULYSSES: But village mirth breeds contests, broils, and blows.
CYCLOPS: When I am drunk none shall lay hands on me.—
ULYSSES: A drunken man is better within doors.
CYCLOPS: He is a fool, who drinking, loves not mirth.
ULYSSES: But he is wise, who drunk, remains at home. _545
CYCLOPS: What shall I do, Silenus? Shall I stay?
SILENUS: Stay—for what need have you of pot companions?
CYCLOPS: Indeed this place is closely carpeted With flowers and grass.
SILENUS: And in the sun-warm noon ’Tis sweet to drink. Lie down beside me now, _550 Placing your mighty sides upon the ground.
CYCLOPS: What do you put the cup behind me for?
SILENUS: That no one here may touch it.
CYCLOPS: Thievish One! You want to drink;—here place it in the midst. And thou, O stranger, tell how art thou called? _555
ULYSSES: My name is Nobody. What favour now Shall I receive to praise you at your hands?
CYCLOPS: I’ll feast on you the last of your companions.
ULYSSES: You grant your guest a fair reward, O Cyclops.
CYCLOPS: Ha! what is this? Stealing the wine, you rogue! _560
SILENUS: It was this stranger kissing me because I looked so beautiful.
CYCLOPS: You shall repent For kissing the coy wine that loves you not.
SILENUS: By Jupiter! you said that I am fair.
CYCLOPS: Pour out, and only give me the cup full. _565
SILENUS: How is it mixed? let me observe.
CYCLOPS: Curse you! Give it me so.
SILENUS: Not till I see you wear That coronal, and taste the cup to you.
CYCLOPS: Thou wily traitor!
SILENUS: But the wine is sweet. Ay, you will roar if you are caught in drinking. _570
CYCLOPS: See now, my lip is clean and all my beard.
SILENUS: Now put your elbow right and drink again. As you see me drink—...
CYCLOPS: How now?
SILENUS: Ye Gods, what a delicious gulp!
CYCLOPS: Guest, take it;—you pour out the wine for me. _575
ULYSSES: The wine is well accustomed to my hand.
CYCLOPS: Pour out the wine!
ULYSSES: I pour; only be silent.
CYCLOPS: Silence is a hard task to him who drinks.
ULYSSES: Take it and drink it off; leave not a dreg. Oh that the drinker died with his own draught! _580
CYCLOPS: Papai! the vine must be a sapient plant.
ULYSSES: If you drink much after a mighty feast, Moistening your thirsty maw, you will sleep well; If you leave aught, Bacchus will dry you up.
CYCLOPS: Ho! ho! I can scarce rise. What pure delight! _585 The heavens and earth appear to whirl about Confusedly. I see the throne of Jove And the clear congregation of the Gods. Now if the Graces tempted me to kiss I would not—for the loveliest of them all _590 I would not leave this Ganymede.
SILENUS: Polypheme, I am the Ganymede of Jupiter.
CYCLOPS: By Jove, you are; I bore you off from Dardanus.
...
[ULYSSES AND THE CHORUS.]
ULYSSES: Come, boys of Bacchus, children of high race, This man within is folded up in sleep, _595 And soon will vomit flesh from his fell maw; The brand under the shed thrusts out its smoke, No preparation needs, but to burn out The monster’s eye;—but bear yourselves like men.
CHORUS: We will have courage like the adamant rock, _600 All things are ready for you here; go in, Before our father shall perceive the noise.
ULYSSES: Vulcan, Aetnean king! burn out with fire The shining eye of this thy neighbouring monster! And thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy Night, _605 Descend unmixed on this God-hated beast, And suffer not Ulysses and his comrades, Returning from their famous Trojan toils, To perish by this man, who cares not either For God or mortal; or I needs must think _610 That Chance is a supreme divinity, And things divine are subject to her power.
NOTE: _606 God-hated 1824; God-hating (as an alternative) B.
CHORUS: Soon a crab the throat will seize Of him who feeds upon his guest, Fire will burn his lamp-like eyes _615 In revenge of such a feast! A great oak stump now is lying In the ashes yet undying. Come, Maron, come! Raging let him fix the doom, _620 Let him tear the eyelid up Of the Cyclops—that his cup May be evil! Oh! I long to dance and revel With sweet Bromian, long desired, _625 In loved ivy wreaths attired; Leaving this abandoned home— Will the moment ever come?
ULYSSES: Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace, And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe, _630 Or spit, or e’en wink, lest ye wake the monster, Until his eye be tortured out with fire.
CHORUS: Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.
ULYSSES: Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake Within—it is delightfully red hot. _635
CHORUS: You then command who first should seize the stake To burn the Cyclops’ eye, that all may share In the great enterprise.
SEMICHORUS 1: We are too far; We cannot at this distance from the door Thrust fire into his eye.
SEMICHORUS 2: And we just now _640 Have become lame! cannot move hand or foot.
CHORUS: The same thing has occurred to us,—our ankles Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.
ULYSSES: What, sprained with standing still?
CHORUS: And there is dust Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence. _645
ULYSSES: Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me then?
CHORUS: With pitying my own back and my back-bone, And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out, This cowardice comes of itself—but stay, I know a famous Orphic incantation _650 To make the brand stick of its own accord Into the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.
ULYSSES: Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now I know ye better.—I will use the aid Of my own comrades. Yet though weak of hand _655 Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken The courage of my friends with your blithe words.
CHORUS: This I will do with peril of my life, And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops. Hasten and thrust, _660 And parch up to dust, The eye of the beast Who feeds on his guest. Burn and blind The Aetnean hind! _665 Scoop and draw, But beware lest he claw Your limbs near his maw.
CYCLOPS: Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders.
CHORUS: What a sweet paean! sing me that again! _670
CYCLOPS: Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me! But, wretched nothings, think ye not to flee Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet, Will bar the way and catch you as you pass.
CHORUS: What are you roaring out, Cyclops?
CYCLOPS: I perish! _675
CHORUS: For you are wicked.
CYCLOPS: And besides miserable.
CHORUS: What, did you fall into the fire when drunk?
CYCLOPS: ’Twas Nobody destroyed me.
CHORUS: Why then no one Can be to blame.
CYCLOPS: I say ’twas Nobody Who blinded me.
CHORUS: Why then you are not blind. _680
CYCLOPS: I wish you were as blind as I am.
CHORUS: Nay, It cannot be that no one made you blind.
CYCLOPS: You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?
CHORUS: Nowhere, O Cyclops.
CYCLOPS: It was that stranger ruined me:—the wretch _685 First gave me wine and then burned out my eye, For wine is strong and hard to struggle with. Have they escaped, or are they yet within?
CHORUS: They stand under the darkness of the rock And cling to it.
CYCLOPS: At my right hand or left? _690
CHORUS: Close on your right.
CYCLOPS: Where?
CHORUS: Near the rock itself. You have them.
CYCLOPS: Oh, misfortune on misfortune! I’ve cracked my skull.
CHORUS: Now they escape you—there.
NOTE: _693 So B.; Now they escape you there 1824.
CYCLOPS: Not there, although you say so.
CHORUS: Not on that side.
CYCLOPS: Where then?
CHORUS: They creep about you on your left. _695
CYCLOPS: Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills.
CHORUS: Not there! he is a little there beyond you.
CYCLOPS: Detested wretch! where are you?
ULYSSES: Far from you I keep with care this body of Ulysses.
CYCLOPS: What do you say? You proffer a new name. _700
ULYSSES: My father named me so; and I have taken A full revenge for your unnatural feast; I should have done ill to have burned down Troy And not revenged the murder of my comrades.
CYCLOPS: Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished; _705 It said that I should have my eyesight blinded By your coming from Troy, yet it foretold That you should pay the penalty for this By wandering long over the homeless sea.
ULYSSES: I bid thee weep—consider what I say; _710 I go towards the shore to drive my ship To mine own land, o’er the Sicilian wave.
CYCLOPS: Not so, if, whelming you with this huge stone, I can crush you and all your men together; I will descend upon the shore, though blind, _715 Groping my way adown the steep ravine.
CHORUS: And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now, Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.
***
EPIGRAMS.
[These four Epigrams were published—numbers 2 and 4 without title—by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
1.—TO STELLA.
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
Thou wert the morning star among the living, Ere thy fair light had fled;— Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving New splendour to the dead.
2.—KISSING HELENA.
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO.
Kissing Helena, together With my kiss, my soul beside it Came to my lips, and there I kept it,— For the poor thing had wandered thither, To follow where the kiss should guide it, _5 Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
3.—SPIRIT OF PLATO.
FROM THE GREEK.
Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb? To what sublime and star-ypaven home Floatest thou?— I am the image of swift Plato’s spirit, Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit _5 His corpse below.
NOTE: _5 doth Boscombe manuscript; does edition 1839.
4.—CIRCUMSTANCE.
FROM THE GREEK.
A man who was about to hang himself, Finding a purse, then threw away his rope; The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf, The halter found; and used it. So is Hope Changed for Despair—one laid upon the shelf, _5 We take the other. Under Heaven’s high cope Fortune is God—all you endure and do Depends on circumstance as much as you.
***
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS.
PROM THE GREEK OF BION.
[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]
I mourn Adonis dead—loveliest Adonis— Dead, dead Adonis—and the Loves lament. Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof— Wake violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown Of Death,—’tis Misery calls,—for he is dead. _5
The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains, His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there. The dark blood wanders o’er his snowy limbs, His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless, _10 The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.
A deep, deep wound Adonis... A deeper Venus bears upon her heart. See, his beloved dogs are gathering round— _15 The Oread nymphs are weeping—Aphrodite With hair unbound is wandering through the woods, ‘Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled—the thorns pierce Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood. Bitterly screaming out, she is driven on _20 Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy, Her love, her husband, calls—the purple blood From his struck thigh stains her white navel now, Her bosom, and her neck before like snow.
Alas for Cytherea—the Loves mourn— _25 The lovely, the beloved is gone!—and now Her sacred beauty vanishes away. For Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair— Alas! her loveliness is dead with him. The oaks and mountains cry, Ai! ai! Adonis! _30 The springs their waters change to tears and weep— The flowers are withered up with grief...
Ai! ai! ... Adonis is dead Echo resounds ... Adonis dead. Who will weep not thy dreadful woe. O Venus? _35 Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound Of her Adonis—saw the life-blood flow From his fair thigh, now wasting,—wailing loud She clasped him, and cried ... ‘Stay, Adonis! Stay, dearest one,... _40 and mix my lips with thine— Wake yet a while, Adonis—oh, but once, That I may kiss thee now for the last time— But for as long as one short kiss may live— Oh, let thy breath flow from thy dying soul _45 Even to my mouth and heart, that I may suck That...’
NOTE: _23 his Rossetti, Dowden, Woodberry; her Boscombe manuscript, Forman.
***
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION.
FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
[Published from the Hunt manuscripts by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]
Ye Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,— Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears, For the beloved Bion is no more. Let every tender herb and plant and flower, From each dejected bud and drooping bloom, _5 Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath Of melancholy sweetness on the wind Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush, Anemones grow paler for the loss Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth, _10 Utter thy legend now—yet more, dumb flower, Than ‘Ah! alas!’—thine is no common grief— Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more.
NOTE: _2 tears]sorrow (as alternative) Hunt manuscript.
***
FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
Tan ala tan glaukan otan onemos atrema Balle—k.t.l.
When winds that move not its calm surface sweep The azure sea, I love the land no more; The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep Tempt my unquiet mind.—But when the roar Of Ocean’s gray abyss resounds, and foam _5 Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst, I turn from the drear aspect to the home Of Earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed, When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody. Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea, _10 Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot Has chosen.—But I my languid limbs will fling Beneath the plane, where the brook’s murmuring Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
***
PAN, ECHO, AND THE SATYR.
FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
[Published (without title) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a draft amongst the Hunt manuscripts.]
Pan loved his neighbour Echo—but that child Of Earth and Air pined for the Satyr leaping; The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild The bright nymph Lyda,—and so three went weeping. As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr, _5 The Satyr, Lyda; and so love consumed them.— And thus to each—which was a woful matter— To bear what they inflicted Justice doomed them; For, inasmuch as each might hate the lover, Each, loving, so was hated.—Ye that love not _10 Be warned—in thought turn this example over, That when ye love, the like return ye prove not.
NOTE: _6 so Hunt manuscript; thus 1824. _11 So 1824; This lesson timely in your thoughts turn over, The moral of this song in thought turn over (as alternatives) Hunt manuscript.
***
FROM VERGIL’S TENTH ECLOGUE.
[VERSES 1-26.]
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870, from the Boscombe manuscripts now in the Bodleian. Mr. Locock (“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 47-50), as the result of his collation of the same manuscripts, gives a revised and expanded version which we print below.]
Melodious Arethusa, o’er my verse Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream: Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow _5 Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew! Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now The soft leaves, in our way let us pursue The melancholy loves of Gallus. List! We sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew _10 His sufferings, and their echoes... Young Naiads,...in what far woodlands wild Wandered ye when unworthy love possessed Your Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled, Nor where Parnassus’ sacred mount, nor where _15 Aonian Aganippe expands... The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim. The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus, The cold crags of Lycaeus, weep for him; And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, _20 Came shaking in his speed the budding wands And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew Pan the Arcadian.
...
‘What madness is this, Gallus? Thy heart’s care With willing steps pursues another there.’ _25
***
THE SAME.
(As revised by Mr. C.D. Locock.)
Melodious Arethusa, o’er my verse Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:
(Two lines missing.)
Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam Of Syracusan waters, mayest thou flow _5 Unmingled with the bitter Dorian dew! Begin, and whilst the goats are browsing now The soft leaves, in our song let us pursue The melancholy loves of Gallus. List! We sing not to the deaf: the wild woods knew _10 His sufferings, and their echoes answer... Young Naiades, in what far woodlands wild Wandered ye, when unworthy love possessed Our Gallus? Nor where Pindus is up-piled, Nor where Parnassus’ sacred mount, nor where _15 Aonian Aganippe spreads its...
(Three lines missing.)
The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim, The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus, The cold crags of Lycaeus weep for him.
(Several lines missing.)
‘What madness is this, Gallus? thy heart’s care, _20 Lycoris, mid rude camps and Alpine snow, With willing step pursues another there.’
(Some lines missing.)
And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, Came shaking in his speed the budding wands And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew _25 Pan the Arcadian with.... ...and said, ‘Wilt thou not ever cease? Love cares not. The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, The goats with the green leaves of budding spring _30 Are saturated not—nor Love with tears.’
***
FROM VERGIL’S FOURTH GEORGIC.
[VERSES 360 ET SEQ.]
[Published by Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]
And the cloven waters like a chasm of mountains Stood, and received him in its mighty portal And led him through the deep’s untrampled fountains
He went in wonder through the path immortal Of his great Mother and her humid reign _5 And groves profaned not by the step of mortal
Which sounded as he passed, and lakes which rain Replenished not girt round by marble caves ‘Wildered by the watery motion of the main
Half ‘wildered he beheld the bursting waves _10 Of every stream beneath the mighty earth Phasis and Lycus which the ... sand paves,
[And] The chasm where old Enipeus has its birth And father Tyber and Anienas[?] glow And whence Caicus, Mysian stream, comes forth _15
And rock-resounding Hypanis, and thou Eridanus who bearest like empire’s sign Two golden horns upon thy taurine brow
Thou than whom none of the streams divine Through garden-fields and meads with fiercer power, _20 Burst in their tumult on the purple brine
***
SONNET.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816; reprinted, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI:
Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I, Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly With winds at will where’er our thoughts might wend, So that no change, nor any evil chance _5 Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be, That even satiety should still enhance Between our hearts their strict community: And that the bounteous wizard then would place Vanna and Bice and my gentle love, _10 Companions of our wandering, and would grace With passionate talk, wherever we might rove, Our time, and each were as content and free As I believe that thou and I should be.
_5 So 1824; And 1816.
***
THE FIRST CANZONE OF THE CONVITO.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; dated 1820.]
1. Ye who intelligent the Third Heaven move, Hear the discourse which is within my heart, Which cannot be declared, it seems so new. The Heaven whose course follows your power and art, Oh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew, _5 And therefore may I dare to speak to you, Even of the life which now I live—and yet I pray that ye will hear me when I cry, And tell of mine own heart this novelty; How the lamenting Spirit moans in it, _10 And how a voice there murmurs against her Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.
2. A sweet Thought, which was once the life within This heavy heart, man a time and oft Went up before our Father’s feet, and there _15 It saw a glorious Lady throned aloft; And its sweet talk of her my soul did win, So that I said, ‘Thither I too will fare.’ That Thought is fled, and one doth now appear Which tyrannizes me with such fierce stress, _20 That my heart trembles—ye may see it leap— And on another Lady bids me keep Mine eyes, and says—Who would have blessedness Let him but look upon that Lady’s eyes, Let him not fear the agony of sighs. _25
3. This lowly Thought, which once would talk with me Of a bright seraph sitting crowned on high, Found such a cruel foe it died, and so My Spirit wept, the grief is hot even now— And said, Alas for me! how swift could flee _30 That piteous Thought which did my life console! And the afflicted one ... questioning Mine eyes, if such a Lady saw they never, And why they would... I said: ‘Beneath those eyes might stand for ever _35 He whom ... regards must kill with... To have known their power stood me in little stead, Those eyes have looked on me, and I am dead.’
4. ‘Thou art not dead, but thou hast wandered, Thou Soul of ours, who thyself dost fret,’ _40 A Spirit of gentle Love beside me said; For that fair Lady, whom thou dost regret, Hath so transformed the life which thou hast led, Thou scornest it, so worthless art thou made. And see how meek, how pitiful, how staid, _45 Yet courteous, in her majesty she is. And still call thou her Woman in thy thought; Her whom, if thou thyself deceivest not, Thou wilt behold decked with such loveliness, That thou wilt cry [Love] only Lord, lo! here _50 Thy handmaiden, do what thou wilt with her.
5. My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning Of such hard matter dost thou entertain. Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring _55 Thee to base company, as chance may do, Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, I prithee comfort thy sweet self again, My last delight; tell them that they are dull, And bid them own that thou art beautiful. _60
NOTE: C5. Published with “Epispychidion”, 1821.—ED.
***
MATILDA GATHERING FLOWERS.
FROM THE PURGATORIO OF DANTE, CANTO 28, LINES 1-51.
[Published in part (lines 1-8, 22-51) by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales”, 1834, “Life of Shelley”, 1847; reprinted in full by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
And earnest to explore within—around— The divine wood, whose thick green living woof Tempered the young day to the sight—I wound
Up the green slope, beneath the forest’s roof, With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain’s steep, _5 And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof
Against the air, that in that stillness deep And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare, The slow, soft stroke of a continuous...
In which the ... leaves tremblingly were _10 All bent towards that part where earliest The sacred hill obscures the morning air.
Yet were they not so shaken from the rest, But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray, Incessantly renewing their blithe quest, _15
With perfect joy received the early day, Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound Kept a low burden to their roundelay,
Such as from bough to bough gathers around The pine forest on bleak Chiassi’s shore, _20 When Aeolus Sirocco has unbound.
My slow steps had already borne me o’er Such space within the antique wood, that I Perceived not where I entered any more,—
When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by, _25 Bending towards the left through grass that grew Upon its bank, impeded suddenly
My going on. Water of purest hue On earth, would appear turbid and impure Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew, _30
Dark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure Eternal shades, whose interwoven looms The rays of moon or sunlight ne’er endure.
I moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms Pierced with my charmed eye, contemplating _35 The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms
Which starred that night, when, even as a thing That suddenly, for blank astonishment, Charms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,—
A solitary woman! and she went _40 Singing and gathering flower after flower, With which her way was painted and besprent.
‘Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power To bear true witness of the heart within, Dost bask under the beams of love, come lower _45
Towards this bank. I prithee let me win This much of thee, to come, that I may hear Thy song: like Proserpine, in Enna’s glen,
Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when _50 She lost the Spring, and Ceres her, more dear.
NOTES: _2 The 1862; That 1834. _4, _5 So 1862; Up a green slope, beneath the starry roof, With slow, slow steps— 1834. _6 inmost 1862; leafy 1834. _9 So 1862; The slow, soft stroke of a continuous sleep cj. Rossetti, 1870. _9-_28 So 1862; Like the sweet breathing of a child asleep: Already I had lost myself so far Amid that tangled wilderness that I Perceived not where I ventured, but no fear Of wandering from my way disturbed, when nigh A little stream appeared; the grass that grew Thick on its banks impeded suddenly My going on. 1834. _13 the 1862; their cj. Rossetti, 1870. _26 through]the cj. Rossetti. _28 hue 1862; dew 1834. _30 dew 1862; hue 1834. _32 Eternal shades 1862; Of the close boughs 1834. _33 So 1862; No ray of moon or sunshine would endure 1834. _34, _35 So 1862; My feet were motionless, but mid the glooms Darted my charmed eyes—1834. _37 Which 1834; That 1862. _39 So 1834; Dissolves all other thought...1862. _40 So 1862; Appeared a solitary maid—she went 1834. _46 Towards 1862; Unto 1834. _47 thee, to come 1862; thee O come 1834.
***
FRAGMENT.
ADAPTED FROM THE VITA NUOVA OF DANTE.
[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]
What Mary is when she a little smiles I cannot even tell or call to mind, It is a miracle so new, so rare.
***
UGOLINO.
(Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, with Shelley’s corrections in italics [‘‘].—ED.)
INFERNO 33, 22-75.
[Translated by Medwin and corrected by Shelley.]
Now had the loophole of that dungeon, still Which bears the name of Famine’s Tower from me, And where ’tis fit that many another will
Be doomed to linger in captivity, Shown through its narrow opening in my cell _5 ‘Moon after moon slow waning’, when a sleep,
‘That of the future burst the veil, in dream Visited me. It was a slumber deep And evil; for I saw, or I did seem’
To see, ‘that’ tyrant Lord his revels keep _10 The leader of the cruel hunt to them, Chasing the wolf and wolf-cubs up the steep
Ascent, that from ‘the Pisan is the screen’ Of ‘Lucca’; with him Gualandi came, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi, ‘bloodhounds lean, _15
Trained to the sport and eager for the game Wide ranging in his front;’ but soon were seen Though by so short a course, with ‘spirits tame,’
The father and ‘his whelps’ to flag at once, And then the sharp fangs gored their bosoms deep. _20 Ere morn I roused myself, and heard my sons,
For they were with me, moaning in their sleep, And begging bread. Ah, for those darling ones! Right cruel art thou, if thou dost not weep
In thinking of my soul’s sad augury; _25 And if thou weepest not now, weep never more! They were already waked, as wont drew nigh
The allotted hour for food, and in that hour Each drew a presage from his dream. When I ‘Heard locked beneath me of that horrible tower _30
The outlet; then into their eyes alone I looked to read myself,’ without a sign Or word. I wept not—turned within to stone.
They wept aloud, and little Anselm mine, Said—’twas my youngest, dearest little one,— _35 “What ails thee, father? Why look so at thine?”
In all that day, and all the following night, I wept not, nor replied; but when to shine Upon the world, not us, came forth the light
Of the new sun, and thwart my prison thrown _40 Gleamed through its narrow chink, a doleful sight, ‘Three faces, each the reflex of my own,
Were imaged by its faint and ghastly ray;’ Then I, of either hand unto the bone, Gnawed, in my agony; and thinking they _45
Twas done from sudden pangs, in their excess, All of a sudden raise themselves, and say, “Father! our woes, so great, were yet the less
Would you but eat of us,—twas ‘you who clad Our bodies in these weeds of wretchedness; _50 Despoil them’.” Not to make their hearts more sad,
I ‘hushed’ myself. That day is at its close,— Another—still we were all mute. Oh, had The obdurate earth opened to end our woes!
The fourth day dawned, and when the new sun shone, _55 Outstretched himself before me as it rose My Gaddo, saying, “Help, father! hast thou none
For thine own child—is there no help from thee?” He died—there at my feet—and one by one, I saw them fall, plainly as you see me. _60
Between the fifth and sixth day, ere twas dawn, I found ‘myself blind-groping o’er the three.’ Three days I called them after they were gone.
Famine of grief can get the mastery.
***
SONNET.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF CAVALCANTI.
GUIDO CAVALCANTI TO DANTE ALIGHIERI:
[Published by Forman (who assigns it to 1815), “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876.]
Returning from its daily quest, my Spirit Changed thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find: It grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind Those ample virtues which it did inherit Has lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude _5 Of blind and madding men—I then loved thee— I loved thy lofty songs and that sweet mood When thou wert faithful to thyself and me I dare not now through thy degraded state Own the delight thy strains inspire—in vain _10 I seek what once thou wert—we cannot meet And we were wont. Again and yet again Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly And leave to thee thy true integrity.
***
SCENES FROM THE MAGICO PRODIGIOSO.
FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; dated March, 1822. There is a transcript of Scene 1 among the Hunt manuscripts, which has been collated by Mr. Buxton Forman.]
## SCENE 1:
ENTER CYPRIAN, DRESSED AS A STUDENT; CLARIN AND MOSCON AS POOR SCHOLARS, WITH BOOKS.
CYPRIAN: In the sweet solitude of this calm place, This intricate wild wilderness of trees And flowers and undergrowth of odorous plants, Leave me; the books you brought out of the house To me are ever best society. _5 And while with glorious festival and song, Antioch now celebrates the consecration Of a proud temple to great Jupiter, And bears his image in loud jubilee To its new shrine, I would consume what still _10 Lives of the dying day in studious thought, Far from the throng and turmoil. You, my friends, Go, and enjoy the festival; it will Be worth your pains. You may return for me When the sun seeks its grave among the billows _15 Which, among dim gray clouds on the horizon, Dance like white plumes upon a hearse;— and here I shall expect you.
NOTES: _14 So transcr.; Be worth the labour, and return for me 1824. _16, _17 So 1824; Hid among dim gray clouds on the horizon Which dance like plumes—transcr., Forman.
MOSCON: I cannot bring my mind, Great as my haste to see the festival Certainly is, to leave you, Sir, without _20 Just saying some three or four thousand words. How is it possible that on a day Of such festivity, you can be content To come forth to a solitary country With three or four old books, and turn your back _25 On all this mirth?
NOTES: _21 thousand transcr.; hundred 1824. _23 be content transcr.; bring your mind 1824.
CLARIN: My master’s in the right; There is not anything more tiresome Than a procession day, with troops, and priests, And dances, and all that.
NOTE: _28 and priests transcr.; of men 1824.
MOSCON: From first to last, Clarin, you are a temporizing flatterer; _30 You praise not what you feel but what he does;— Toadeater!
CLARIN: You lie—under a mistake— For this is the most civil sort of lie That can be given to a man’s face. I now Say what I think.
CYPRIAN: Enough, you foolish fellows! _35 Puffed up with your own doting ignorance, You always take the two sides of one question. Now go; and as I said, return for me When night falls, veiling in its shadows wide This glorious fabric of the universe. _40
NOTE: _36 doting ignorance transcr.; ignorance and pride 1824.
MOSCON: How happens it, although you can maintain The folly of enjoying festivals, That yet you go there?
CLARIN: Nay, the consequence Is clear:—who ever did what he advises Others to do?—
MOSCON: Would that my feet were wings, _45 So would I fly to Livia.
[EXIT.]
CLARIN: To speak truth, Livia is she who has surprised my heart; But he is more than half-way there.—Soho! Livia, I come; good sport, Livia, soho!
[EXIT.]
CYPRIAN: Now, since I am alone, let me examine _50 The question which has long disturbed my mind With doubt, since first I read in Plinius The words of mystic import and deep sense In which he defines God. My intellect Can find no God with whom these marks and signs _55 Fitly agree. It is a hidden truth Which I must fathom.
[CYPRIAN READS; THE DAEMON, DRESSED IN A COURT DRESS, ENTERS.]
NOTE: _57 Stage Direction: So transcr. Reads. Enter the Devil as a fine gentleman 1824.
DAEMON: Search even as thou wilt, But thou shalt never find what I can hide.
CYPRIAN: What noise is that among the boughs? Who moves? What art thou?—
DAEMON: ’Tis a foreign gentleman. _60 Even from this morning I have lost my way In this wild place; and my poor horse at last, Quite overcome, has stretched himself upon The enamelled tapestry of this mossy mountain, And feeds and rests at the same time. I was _65 Upon my way to Antioch upon business Of some importance, but wrapped up in cares (Who is exempt from this inheritance?) I parted from my company, and lost My way, and lost my servants and my comrades. _70
CYPRIAN: ’Tis singular that even within the sight Of the high towers of Antioch you could lose Your way. Of all the avenues and green paths Of this wild wood there is not one but leads, As to its centre, to the walls of Antioch; _75 Take which you will, you cannot miss your road.
DAEMON: And such is ignorance! Even in the sight Of knowledge, it can draw no profit from it. But as it still is early, and as I Have no acquaintances in Antioch, _80 Being a stranger there, I will even wait The few surviving hours of the day, Until the night shall conquer it. I see Both by your dress and by the books in which You find delight and company, that you _85 Are a great student;—for my part, I feel Much sympathy in such pursuits.
NOTE: _87 in transcr.; with 1824.
CYPRIAN: Have you Studied much?
DAEMON: No,—and yet I know enough Not to be wholly ignorant.
CYPRIAN: Pray, Sir, What science may you know?—
DAEMON: Many.
CYPRIAN: Alas! _90 Much pains must we expend on one alone, And even then attain it not;—but you Have the presumption to assert that you Know many without study.
DAEMON: And with truth. For in the country whence I come the sciences _95 Require no learning,—they are known.
NOTE: _95 come the sciences]come sciences 1824.
CYPRIAN: Oh, would I were of that bright country! for in this The more we study, we the more discover Our ignorance.
DAEMON: It is so true, that I Had so much arrogance as to oppose _100 The chair of the most high Professorship, And obtained many votes, and, though I lost, The attempt was still more glorious, than the failure Could be dishonourable. If you believe not, Let us refer it to dispute respecting _105 That which you know the best, and although I Know not the opinion you maintain, and though It be the true one, I will take the contrary.
NOTE: _106 the transcr.; wanting, 1824.
CYPRIAN: The offer gives me pleasure. I am now Debating with myself upon a passage _110 Of Plinius, and my mind is racked with doubt To understand and know who is the God Of whom he speaks.
DAEMON: It is a passage, if I recollect it right, couched in these words ‘God is one supreme goodness, one pure essence, _115 One substance, and one sense, all sight, all hands.’
CYPRIAN: ’Tis true.
DAEMON: What difficulty find you here?
CYPRIAN: I do not recognize among the Gods The God defined by Plinius; if he must Be supreme goodness, even Jupiter _120 Is not supremely good; because we see His deeds are evil, and his attributes Tainted with mortal weakness; in what manner Can supreme goodness be consistent with The passions of humanity?
DAEMON: The wisdom _125 Of the old world masked with the names of Gods The attributes of Nature and of Man; A sort of popular philosophy.
CYPRIAN: This reply will not satisfy me, for Such awe is due to the high name of God _130 That ill should never be imputed. Then, Examining the question with more care, It follows, that the Gods would always will That which is best, were they supremely good. How then does one will one thing, one another? _135 And that you may not say that I allege Poetical or philosophic learning:— Consider the ambiguous responses Of their oracular statues; from two shrines Two armies shall obtain the assurance of _140 One victory. Is it not indisputable That two contending wills can never lead To the same end? And, being opposite, If one be good, is not the other evil? Evil in God is inconceivable; _145 But supreme goodness fails among the Gods Without their union.
NOTE: _133 would transcr.; should 1824.
DAEMON: I deny your major. These responses are means towards some end Unfathomed by our intellectual beam. They are the work of Providence, and more _150 The battle’s loss may profit those who lose, Than victory advantage those who win.
CYPRIAN: That I admit; and yet that God should not (Falsehood is incompatible with deity) Assure the victory; it would be enough _155 To have permitted the defeat. If God Be all sight,—God, who had beheld the truth, Would not have given assurance of an end Never to be accomplished: thus, although The Deity may according to his attributes _160 Be well distinguished into persons, yet Even in the minutest circumstance His essence must be one.
NOTE: _157 had transcr.; wanting, 1824.
DAEMON: To attain the end The affections of the actors in the scene Must have been thus influenced by his voice. _165
CYPRIAN: But for a purpose thus subordinate He might have employed Genii, good or evil,— A sort of spirits called so by the learned, Who roam about inspiring good or evil, And from whose influence and existence we _170 May well infer our immortality. Thus God might easily, without descent To a gross falsehood in his proper person, Have moved the affections by this mediation To the just point.
NOTE: _172 descent transcr.; descending 1824.
DAEMON: These trifling contradictions _175 Do not suffice to impugn the unity Of the high Gods; in things of great importance They still appear unanimous; consider That glorious fabric, man,—his workmanship Is stamped with one conception.
CYPRIAN: Who made man _180 Must have, methinks, the advantage of the others. If they are equal, might they not have risen In opposition to the work, and being All hands, according to our author here, Have still destroyed even as the other made? _185 If equal in their power, unequal only In opportunity, which of the two Will remain conqueror?
NOTE: _186 unequal only transcr.; and only unequal 1824.
DAEMON: On impossible And false hypothesis there can be built No argument. Say, what do you infer _190 From this?
CYPRIAN: That there must be a mighty God Of supreme goodness and of highest grace, All sight, all hands, all truth, infallible, Without an equal and without a rival, The cause of all things and the effect of nothing, _195 One power, one will, one substance, and one essence. And, in whatever persons, one or two, His attributes may be distinguished, one Sovereign power, one solitary essence, One cause of all cause.
NOTE: _197 And]query, Ay?
[THEY RISE.]
DAEMON: How can I impugn _200 So clear a consequence?
NOTE: _200 all cause 1824; all things transcr.
CYPRIAN: Do you regret My victory?
DAEMON: Who but regrets a check In rivalry of wit? I could reply And urge new difficulties, but will now Depart, for I hear steps of men approaching, _205 And it is time that I should now pursue My journey to the city.
CYPRIAN: Go in peace!
DAEMON: Remain in peace!—Since thus it profits him To study, I will wrap his senses up In sweet oblivion of all thought but of _210 A piece of excellent beauty; and, as I Have power given me to wage enmity Against Justina’s soul, I will extract From one effect two vengeances.
[ASIDE AND EXIT.]
NOTE: _214 Stage direction So transcr.; Exit 1824.
CYPRIAN: I never Met a more learned person. Let me now _215 Revolve this doubt again with careful mind.
[HE READS.]
[FLORO AND LELIO ENTER.]
LELIO: Here stop. These toppling rocks and tangled boughs, Impenetrable by the noonday beam, Shall be sole witnesses of what we—
FLORO: Draw! If there were words, here is the place for deeds. _220
LELIO: Thou needest not instruct me; well I know That in the field, the silent tongue of steel Speaks thus,—
[THEY FIGHT.]
CYPRIAN: Ha! what is this? Lelio,—Floro, Be it enough that Cyprian stands between you, Although unarmed.
LELIO: Whence comest thou, to stand _225 Between me and my vengeance?
FLORO: From what rocks And desert cells?
[ENTER MOSCON AND CLARIN.]
MOSCON: Run! run! for where we left My master. I now hear the clash of swords.
NOTES: _228 I now hear transcr.; we hear 1824. _227-_229 lines of otherwise arranged, 1824.
CLARIN: I never run to approach things of this sort But only to avoid them. Sir! Cyprian! sir! _230
CYPRIAN: Be silent, fellows! What! two friends who are In blood and fame the eyes and hope of Antioch, One of the noble race of the Colalti, The other son o’ the Governor, adventure And cast away, on some slight cause no doubt, _235 Two lives, the honour of their country?
NOTE: _233 race transcr.; men 1824. Colalti]Colatti 1824.
LELIO: Cyprian! Although my high respect towards your person Holds now my sword suspended, thou canst not Restore it to the slumber of the scabbard: Thou knowest more of science than the duel; _240 For when two men of honour take the field, No counsel nor respect can make them friends But one must die in the dispute.
NOTE: _239 of the transcr.; of its 1824. _242 No counsel nor 1839, 1st edition; No [...] or 1824; No reasoning or transcr. _243 dispute transcr. pursuit 1824.
FLORO: I pray That you depart hence with your people, and Leave us to finish what we have begun _245 Without advantage.—
CYPRIAN: Though you may imagine That I know little of the laws of duel, Which vanity and valour instituted, You are in error. By my birth I am Held no less than yourselves to know the limits _250 Of honour and of infamy, nor has study Quenched the free spirit which first ordered them; And thus to me, as one well experienced In the false quicksands of the sea of honour, You may refer the merits of the case; _255 And if I should perceive in your relation That either has the right to satisfaction From the other, I give you my word of honour To leave you.
NOTE: _253 well omit, cj. Forman.
LELIO: Under this condition then I will relate the cause, and you will cede _260 And must confess the impossibility Of compromise; for the same lady is Beloved by Floro and myself.
FLORO: It seems Much to me that the light of day should look Upon that idol of my heart—but he— _265 Leave us to fight, according to thy word.
CYPRIAN: Permit one question further: is the lady Impossible to hope or not?
LELIO: She is So excellent, that if the light of day Should excite Floro’s jealousy, it were _270 Without just cause, for even the light of day Trembles to gaze on her.
CYPRIAN: Would you for your Part, marry her?
FLORO: Such is my confidence.
CYPRIAN: And you?
LELIO: Oh! would that I could lift my hope So high, for though she is extremely poor, _275 Her virtue is her dowry.
CYPRIAN: And if you both Would marry her, is it not weak and vain, Culpable and unworthy, thus beforehand To slur her honour? What would the world say If one should slay the other, and if she _280 Should afterwards espouse the murderer?
[THE RIVALS AGREE TO REFER THEIR QUARREL TO CYPRIAN; WHO IN CONSEQUENCE VISITS JUSTINA, AND BECOMES ENAMOURED OF HER; SHE DISDAINS HIM, AND HE RETIRES TO A SOLITARY SEA-SHORE.]
## SCENE 2.
CYPRIAN: O memory! permit it not That the tyrant of my thought Be another soul that still Holds dominion o’er the will, That would refuse, but can no more, _5 To bend, to tremble, and adore. Vain idolatry!—I saw, And gazing, became blind with error; Weak ambition, which the awe Of her presence bound to terror! _10 So beautiful she was—and I, Between my love and jealousy, Am so convulsed with hope and fear, Unworthy as it may appear;— So bitter is the life I live, _15 That, hear me, Hell! I now would give To thy most detested spirit My soul, for ever to inherit, To suffer punishment and pine, So this woman may be mine. _20 Hear’st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it? My soul is offered!
DAEMON (UNSEEN): I accept it.
[TEMPEST, WITH THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.]
CYPRIAN: What is this? ye heavens for ever pure, At once intensely radiant and obscure! Athwart the aethereal halls _25 The lightning’s arrow and the thunder-balls The day affright, As from the horizon round, Burst with earthquake sound, In mighty torrents the electric fountains;— _30 Clouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke Strangles the air, and fire eclipses Heaven. Philosophy, thou canst not even Compel their causes underneath thy yoke: From yonder clouds even to the waves below _35 The fragments of a single ruin choke Imagination’s flight; For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light, The ashes of the desolation, cast Upon the gloomy blast, _40 Tell of the footsteps of the storm; And nearer, see, the melancholy form Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea, Drives miserably! And it must fly the pity of the port, _45 Or perish, and its last and sole resort Is its own raging enemy. The terror of the thrilling cry Was a fatal prophecy Of coming death, who hovers now _50 Upon that shattered prow, That they who die not may be dying still. And not alone the insane elements Are populous with wild portents, But that sad ship is as a miracle _55 Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast It seems as if it had arrayed its form With the headlong storm. It strikes—I almost feel the shock,— It stumbles on a jagged rock,— _60 Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.
[A TEMPEST.]
ALL EXCLAIM [WITHIN]: We are all lost!
DAEMON [WITHIN]: Now from this plank will I Pass to the land and thus fulfil my scheme.
CYPRIAN: As in contempt of the elemental rage A man comes forth in safety, while the ship’s _65 Great form is in a watery eclipse Obliterated from the Oceans page, And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit, A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave Is heaped over its carcase, like a grave. _70
[THE DAEMON ENTERS, AS ESCAPED FROM THE SEA.]
DAEMON [ASIDE]: It was essential to my purposes To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean, That in this unknown form I might at length Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture Sustained upon the mountain, and assail _75 With a new war the soul of Cyprian, Forging the instruments of his destruction Even from his love and from his wisdom.—O Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom I seek a refuge from the monster who _80 Precipitates itself upon me.
CYPRIAN: Friend, Collect thyself; and be the memory Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow But as a shadow of the past,—for nothing Beneath the circle of the moon, but flows _85 And changes, and can never know repose.
DAEMON: And who art thou, before whose feet my fate Has prostrated me?
CYPRIAN: One who, moved with pity, Would soothe its stings.
DAEMON: Oh, that can never be! No solace can my lasting sorrows find. _90
CYPRIAN: Wherefore?
DAEMON: Because my happiness is lost. Yet I lament what has long ceased to be The object of desire or memory, And my life is not life.
CYPRIAN: Now, since the fury Of this earthquaking hurricane is still, _95 And the crystalline Heaven has reassumed Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems As if its heavy wrath had been awakened Only to overwhelm that vessel,—speak, Who art thou, and whence comest thou?
DAEMON: Far more _100 My coming hither cost, than thou hast seen Or I can tell. Among my misadventures This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear?
CYPRIAN: Speak.
DAEMON: Since thou desirest, I will then unveil Myself to thee;—for in myself I am _105 A world of happiness and misery; This I have lost, and that I must lament Forever. In my attributes I stood So high and so heroically great, In lineage so supreme, and with a genius _110 Which penetrated with a glance the world Beneath my feet, that, won by my high merit, A king—whom I may call the King of kings, Because all others tremble in their pride Before the terrors of His countenance, _115 In His high palace roofed with brightest gems Of living light—call them the stars of Heaven— Named me His counsellor. But the high praise Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose In mighty competition, to ascend _120 His seat and place my foot triumphantly Upon His subject thrones. Chastised, I know The depth to which ambition falls; too mad Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now Repentance of the irrevocable deed:— _125 Therefore I chose this ruin, with the glory Of not to be subdued, before the shame Of reconciling me with Him who reigns By coward cession.—Nor was I alone, Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone; _130 And there was hope, and there may still be hope, For many suffrages among His vassals Hailed me their lord and king, and many still Are mine, and many more, perchance shall be. Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, _135 I left His seat of empire, from mine eye Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven, Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong, And imprecating on His prostrate slaves _140 Rapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed Over the mighty fabric of the world,— A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands, A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves And craggy shores; and I have wandered over _145 The expanse of these wide wildernesses In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved In the light breathings of the invisible wind, And which the sea has made a dustless ruin, Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests _150 I seek a man, whom I must now compel To keep his word with me. I came arrayed In tempest, and although my power could well Bridle the forest winds in their career, For other causes I forbore to soothe _155 Their fury to Favonian gentleness; I could and would not; [ASIDE.] (thus I wake in him A love of magic art). Let not this tempest, Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder; For by my art the sun would turn as pale _160 As his weak sister with unwonted fear; And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven Written as in a record; I have pierced The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres And know them as thou knowest every corner _165 Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work A charm over this waste and savage wood, This Babylon of crags and aged trees, Filling its leafy coverts with a horror _170 Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest Of these wild oaks and pines—and as from thee I have received the hospitality Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit Of years of toil in recompense; whate’er _175 Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought As object of desire, that shall be thine.
...
And thenceforth shall so firm an amity ’Twixt thee and me be, that neither Fortune, The monstrous phantom which pursues success, _180 That careful miser, that free prodigal, Who ever alternates, with changeful hand, Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time, That lodestar of the ages, to whose beam The winged years speed o’er the intervals _185 Of their unequal revolutions; nor Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars Rule and adorn the world, can ever make The least division between thee and me, Since now I find a refuge in thy favour. _190
NOTES: _146 wide glassy wildernesses Rossetti. _150 Seeking forever cj. Forman. _154 forest]fiercest cj. Rossetti.
## SCENE 3.
THE DAEMON TEMPTS JUSTINA, WHO IS A CHRISTIAN.
DAEMON: Abyss of Hell! I call on thee, Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy! From thy prison-house set free The spirits of voluptuous death, That with their mighty breath _5 They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts; Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Be peopled from thy shadowy deep, Till her guiltless fantasy Full to overflowing be! _10 And with sweetest harmony, Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move To love, only to love. Let nothing meet her eyes But signs of Love’s soft victories; _15 Let nothing meet her ear But sounds of Love’s sweet sorrow, So that from faith no succour she may borrow, But, guided by my spirit blind And in a magic snare entwined, _20 She may now seek Cyprian. Begin, while I in silence bind My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast began.
NOTE: _18 she may]may she 1824.
A VOICE [WITHIN]: What is the glory far above All else in human life?
ALL: Love! love! _25
[WHILE THESE WORDS ARE SUNG, THE DAEMON GOES OUT AT ONE DOOR, AND JUSTINA ENTERS AT ANOTHER.]
THE FIRST VOICE: There is no form in which the fire Of love its traces has impressed not. Man lives far more in love’s desire Than by life’s breath, soon possessed not. If all that lives must love or die, _30 All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky, With one consent to Heaven cry That the glory far above All else in life is—
ALL: Love! oh, Love!
JUSTINA: Thou melancholy Thought which art _35 So flattering and so sweet, to thee When did I give the liberty Thus to afflict my heart? What is the cause of this new Power Which doth my fevered being move, _40 Momently raging more and more? What subtle Pain is kindled now Which from my heart doth overflow Into my senses?—
NOTE: _36 flattering Boscombe manuscript; fluttering 1824.
ALL: Love! oh, Love!
JUSTINA: ’Tis that enamoured Nightingale _45 Who gives me the reply; He ever tells the same soft tale Of passion and of constancy To his mate, who rapt and fond, Listening sits, a bough beyond. _50
Be silent, Nightingale—no more Make me think, in hearing thee Thus tenderly thy love deplore, If a bird can feel his so, What a man would feel for me. _55 And, voluptuous Vine, O thou Who seekest most when least pursuing,— To the trunk thou interlacest Art the verdure which embracest, And the weight which is its ruin,— _60 No more, with green embraces, Vine, Make me think on what thou lovest,— For whilst thus thy boughs entwine I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist, How arms might be entangled too. _65
Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou Who gazest ever true and tender On the sun’s revolving splendour! Follow not his faithless glance With thy faded countenance, _70 Nor teach my beating heart to fear, If leaves can mourn without a tear, How eyes must weep! O Nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale,— Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, _75 Restless Sunflower, cease to move,— Or tell me all, what poisonous Power Ye use against me—
NOTES: _58 To]Who to cj. Rossetti. _63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.
ALL: Love! Love! Love!
JUSTINA: It cannot be!—Whom have I ever loved? Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, _80 Floro and Lelio did I not reject? And Cyprian?— [SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.] Did I not requite him With such severity, that he has fled Where none has ever heard of him again?— Alas! I now begin to fear that this _85 May be the occasion whence desire grows bold, As if there were no danger. From the moment That I pronounced to my own listening heart, ‘Cyprian is absent!’—O me miserable! I know not what I feel! [MORE CALMLY.] It must be pity _90 To think that such a man, whom all the world Admired, should be forgot by all the world, And I the cause. [SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.] And yet if it were pity, Floro and Lelio might have equal share, For they are both imprisoned for my sake. _95 [CALMLY.] Alas! what reasonings are these? it is Enough I pity him, and that, in vain, Without this ceremonious subtlety. And, woe is me! I know not where to find him now, Even should I seek him through this wide world. _100
NOTE: _89 me miserable]miserable me editions 1839.
[ENTER DAEMON.]
DAEMON: Follow, and I will lead thee where he is.
JUSTINA: And who art thou, who hast found entrance hither, Into my chamber through the doors and locks? Art thou a monstrous shadow which my madness Has formed in the idle air?
DAEMON: No. I am one _105 Called by the Thought which tyrannizes thee From his eternal dwelling; who this day Is pledged to bear thee unto Cyprian.
JUSTINA: So shall thy promise fail. This agony Of passion which afflicts my heart and soul _110 May sweep imagination in its storm; The will is firm.
DAEMON: Already half is done In the imagination of an act. The sin incurred, the pleasure then remains; Let not the will stop half-way on the road. _115
JUSTINA: I will not be discouraged, nor despair, Although I thought it, and although ’tis true That thought is but a prelude to the deed:— Thought is not in my power, but action is: I will not move my foot to follow thee. _120
DAEMON: But a far mightier wisdom than thine own Exerts itself within thee, with such power Compelling thee to that which it inclines That it shall force thy step; how wilt thou then Resist, Justina?
NOTE: _123 inclines]inclines to cj. Rossetti.
JUSTINA: By my free-will.
DAEMON: I _125 Must force thy will.
JUSTINA: It is invincible; It were not free if thou hadst power upon it.
[HE DRAWS, BUT CANNOT MOVE HER.]
DAEMON: Come, where a pleasure waits thee.
JUSTINA: It were bought Too dear.
DAEMON: ‘Twill soothe thy heart to softest peace.
JUSTINA: ’Tis dread captivity.
DAEMON: ’Tis joy, ’tis glory. _130
JUSTINA: ’Tis shame, ’tis torment, ’tis despair.
DAEMON: But how Canst thou defend thyself from that or me, If my power drags thee onward?
JUSTINA: My defence Consists in God.
[HE VAINLY ENDEAVOURS TO FORCE HER, AND AT LAST RELEASES HER.]
DAEMON: Woman, thou hast subdued me, Only by not owning thyself subdued. _135 But since thou thus findest defence in God, I will assume a feigned form, and thus Make thee a victim of my baffled rage. For I will mask a spirit in thy form Who will betray thy name to infamy, _140 And doubly shall I triumph in thy loss, First by dishonouring thee, and then by turning False pleasure to true ignominy.
[EXIT.]
JUSTINA: I Appeal to Heaven against thee; so that Heaven May scatter thy delusions, and the blot _145 Upon my fame vanish in idle thought, Even as flame dies in the envious air, And as the floweret wanes at morning frost; And thou shouldst never—But, alas! to whom Do I still speak?—Did not a man but now _150 Stand here before me?—No, I am alone, And yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly? Or can the heated mind engender shapes From its own fear? Some terrible and strange Peril is near. Lisander! father! lord! _155 Livia!—
[ENTER LISANDER AND LIVIA.]
LISANDER: Oh, my daughter! What?
LIVIA: What!
JUSTINA: Saw you A man go forth from my apartment now?— I scarce contain myself!
LISANDER: A man here!
JUSTINA: Have you not seen him?
LIVIA: No, Lady.
JUSTINA: I saw him.
LISANDER: ’Tis impossible; the doors _160 Which led to this apartment were all locked.
LIVIA [ASIDE]: I daresay it was Moscon whom she saw, For he was locked up in my room.
LISANDER: It must Have been some image of thy fantasy. Such melancholy as thou feedest is _165 Skilful in forming such in the vain air Out of the motes and atoms of the day.
LIVIA: My master’s in the right.
JUSTINA: Oh, would it were Delusion; but I fear some greater ill. I feel as if out of my bleeding bosom _170 My heart was torn in fragments; ay, Some mortal spell is wrought against my frame; So potent was the charm that, had not God Shielded my humble innocence from wrong, I should have sought my sorrow and my shame _175 With willing steps.—Livia, quick, bring my cloak, For I must seek refuge from these extremes Even in the temple of the highest God Where secretly the faithful worship.
LIVIA: Here.
NOTE: _179 Where Rossetti; Which 1824.
JUSTINA [PUTTING ON HER CLOAK]: In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I _180 Quench the consuming fire in which I burn, Wasting away!
LISANDER: And I will go with thee.
LIVIA: When I once see them safe out of the house I shall breathe freely.
JUSTINA: So do I confide In thy just favour, Heaven!
LISANDER: Let us go. _185
JUSTINA: Thine is the cause, great God! turn for my sake, And for Thine own, mercifully to me!
***
STANZAS FROM CALDERON’S CISMA DE INGLATERRA.
TRANSLATED BY MEDWIN AND CORRECTED BY SHELLEY.
[Published by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, with Shelley’s corrections in ‘‘.]
1. Hast thou not seen, officious with delight, Move through the illumined air about the flower The Bee, that fears to drink its purple light, Lest danger lurk within that Rose’s bower? Hast thou not marked the moth’s enamoured flight _5 About the Taper’s flame at evening hour; ‘Till kindle in that monumental fire His sunflower wings their own funereal pyre?
2. My heart, its wishes trembling to unfold. Thus round the Rose and Taper hovering came, _10 ‘And Passion’s slave, Distrust, in ashes cold. Smothered awhile, but could not quench the flame,’— Till Love, that grows by disappointment bold, And Opportunity, had conquered Shame; And like the Bee and Moth, in act to close, _15 ‘I burned my wings, and settled on the Rose.’
***
SCENES FROM THE FAUST OF GOETHE.
[Published in part (Scene 2) in “The Liberal”, No. 1, 1822; in full, by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
## SCENE 1.—PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.
THE LORD AND THE HOST OF HEAVEN.
ENTER THREE ARCHANGELS.
RAPHAEL: The sun makes music as of old Amid the rival spheres of Heaven, On its predestined circle rolled With thunder speed: the Angels even Draw strength from gazing on its glance, _5 Though none its meaning fathom may:— The world’s unwithered countenance Is bright as at Creation’s day.
GABRIEL: And swift and swift, with rapid lightness, The adorned Earth spins silently, _10 Alternating Elysian brightness With deep and dreadful night; the sea Foams in broad billows from the deep Up to the rocks, and rocks and Ocean, Onward, with spheres which never sleep, _15 Are hurried in eternal motion.
MICHAEL: And tempests in contention roar From land to sea, from sea to land; And, raging, weave a chain of power, Which girds the earth, as with a band.— _20 A flashing desolation there, Flames before the thunder’s way; But Thy servants, Lord, revere The gentle changes of Thy day.
CHORUS OF THE THREE: The Angels draw strength from Thy glance, _25 Though no one comprehend Thee may;— Thy world’s unwithered countenance Is bright as on Creation’s day.
NOTE: _28 (RAPHAEL: The sun sounds, according to ancient custom, In the song of emulation of his brother-spheres. And its fore-written circle Fulfils with a step of thunder. Its countenance gives the Angels strength Though no one can fathom it. The incredible high works Are excellent as at the first day.
GABRIEL: And swift, and inconceivably swift The adornment of earth winds itself round, And exchanges Paradise-clearness With deep dreadful night. The sea foams in broad waves From its deep bottom, up to the rocks, And rocks and sea are torn on together In the eternal swift course of the spheres.
MICHAEL: And storms roar in emulation From sea to land, from land to sea, And make, raging, a chain Of deepest operation round about. There flames a flashing destruction Before the path of the thunderbolt. But Thy servants, Lord, revere The gentle alternations of Thy day.
CHORUS: Thy countenance gives the Angels strength, Though none can comprehend Thee: And all Thy lofty works Are excellent as at the first day.
Such is a literal translation of this astonishing chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
[ENTER MEPHISTOPHELES.]
MEPHISTOPHELES: As thou, O Lord, once more art kind enough To interest Thyself in our affairs, _30 And ask, ‘How goes it with you there below?’ And as indulgently at other times Thou tookest not my visits in ill part, Thou seest me here once more among Thy household. Though I should scandalize this company, _35 You will excuse me if I do not talk In the high style which they think fashionable; My pathos certainly would make You laugh too, Had You not long since given over laughing. Nothing know I to say of suns and worlds; _40 I observe only how men plague themselves;— The little god o’ the world keeps the same stamp, As wonderful as on creation’s day:— A little better would he live, hadst Thou Not given him a glimpse of Heaven’s light _45 Which he calls reason, and employs it only To live more beastlily than any beast. With reverence to Your Lordship be it spoken, He’s like one of those long-legged grasshoppers, Who flits and jumps about, and sings for ever _50 The same old song i’ the grass. There let him lie, Burying his nose in every heap of dung.
NOTES: _38 certainly would editions 1839; would certainly 1824. _47 beastlily 1824; beastily editions 1839.
THE LORD: Have you no more to say? Do you come here Always to scold, and cavil, and complain? Seems nothing ever right to you on earth? _55
MEPHISTOPHELES: No, Lord! I find all there, as ever, bad at best. Even I am sorry for man’s days of sorrow; I could myself almost give up the pleasure Of plaguing the poor things.
THE LORD: Knowest thou Faust?
MEPHISTOPHELES: The Doctor?
THE LORD: Ay; My servant Faust.
MEPHISTOPHELES: In truth _60 He serves You in a fashion quite his own; And the fool’s meat and drink are not of earth. His aspirations bear him on so far That he is half aware of his own folly, For he demands from Heaven its fairest star, _65 And from the earth the highest joy it bears, Yet all things far, and all things near, are vain To calm the deep emotions of his breast.
THE LORD: Though he now serves Me in a cloud of error, I will soon lead him forth to the clear day. _70 When trees look green, full well the gardener knows That fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.
MEPHISTOPHELES: What will You bet?—now am sure of winning— Only, observe You give me full permission To lead him softly on my path.
THE LORD: As long _75 As he shall live upon the earth, so long Is nothing unto thee forbidden—Man Must err till he has ceased to struggle.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Thanks. And that is all I ask; for willingly I never make acquaintance with the dead. _80 The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me, And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home. For I am like a cat—I like to play A little with the mouse before I eat it.
THE LORD: Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou _85 His spirit from its springs; as thou find’st power Seize him and lead him on thy downward path; And stand ashamed when failure teaches thee That a good man, even in his darkest longings, Is well aware of the right way.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Well and good. _90 I am not in much doubt about my bet, And if I lose, then ’tis Your turn to crow; Enjoy Your triumph then with a full breast. Ay; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure, Like my old paramour, the famous Snake. _95
THE LORD: Pray come here when it suits you; for I never Had much dislike for people of your sort. And, among all the Spirits who rebelled, The knave was ever the least tedious to Me. The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon _100 He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I Have given him the Devil for a companion, Who may provoke him to some sort of work, And must create forever.—But ye, pure Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty;— _105 Let that which ever operates and lives Clasp you within the limits of its love; And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts The floating phantoms of its loveliness.
[HEAVEN CLOSES; THE ARCHANGELS EXEUNT.]
MEPHISTOPHELES: From time to time I visit the old fellow, _110 And I take care to keep on good terms with Him. Civil enough is the same God Almighty, To talk so freely with the Devil himself.
## SCENE 2.—MAY-DAY NIGHT.
THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Would you not like a broomstick? As for me I wish I had a good stout ram to ride; For we are still far from the appointed place.
FAUST: This knotted staff is help enough for me, Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good _5 Is there in making short a pleasant way? To creep along the labyrinths of the vales, And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs, Precipitate themselves in waterfalls, Is the true sport that seasons such a path. _10 Already Spring kindles the birchen spray, And the hoar pines already feel her breath: Shall she not work also within our limbs?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Nothing of such an influence do I feel. My body is all wintry, and I wish _15 The flowers upon our path were frost and snow. But see how melancholy rises now, Dimly uplifting her belated beam, The blank unwelcome round of the red moon, And gives so bad a light, that every step _20 One stumbles ’gainst some crag. With your permission, I’ll call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid: I see one yonder burning jollily. Halloo, my friend! may I request that you Would favour us with your bright company? _25 Why should you blaze away there to no purpose? Pray be so good as light us up this way.
IGNIS-FATUUS: With reverence be it spoken, I will try To overcome the lightness of my nature; Our course, you know, is generally zigzag. _30
MEPHISTOPHELES: Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal With men. Go straight on, in the Devil’s name, Or I shall puff your flickering life out.
NOTE: _33 shall puff 1824; will blow 1822.
IGNIS-FATUUS: Well, I see you are the master of the house; I will accommodate myself to you. _35 Only consider that to-night this mountain Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern Shows you his way, though you should miss your own, You ought not to be too exact with him.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, AND IGNIS-FATUUS, IN ALTERNATE CHORUS: The limits of the sphere of dream, _40 The bounds of true and false, are past. Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam, Lead us onward, far and fast, To the wide, the desert waste.
But see, how swift advance and shift _45 Trees behind trees, row by row,— How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift Their frowning foreheads as we go. The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho! How they snort, and how they blow! _50
Through the mossy sods and stones, Stream and streamlet hurry down— A rushing throng! A sound of song Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown! Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones _55 Of this bright day, sent down to say That Paradise on Earth is known, Resound around, beneath, above. All we hope and all we love Finds a voice in this blithe strain, _60 Which wakens hill and wood and rill, And vibrates far o’er field and vale, And which Echo, like the tale Of old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now _65 The sound of song, the rushing throng! Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay, All awake as if ’twere day? See, with long legs and belly wide, A salamander in the brake! _70 Every root is like a snake, And along the loose hillside, With strange contortions through the night, Curls, to seize or to affright; And, animated, strong, and many, _75 They dart forth polypus-antennae, To blister with their poison spume The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom The many-coloured mice, that thread The dewy turf beneath our tread, _80 In troops each other’s motions cross, Through the heath and through the moss; And, in legions intertangled, The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng, Till all the mountain depths are spangled. _85
Tell me, shall we go or stay? Shall we onward? Come along! Everything around is swept Forward, onward, far away! Trees and masses intercept _90 The sight, and wisps on every side Are puffed up and multiplied.
NOTES: _48 frowning]fawning 1822. _70 brake 1824; lake 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain This pinnacle of isolated crag. One may observe with wonder from this point, _95 How Mammon glows among the mountains.
FAUST: Ay— And strangely through the solid depth below A melancholy light, like the red dawn, Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss Of mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise _100 Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by; Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air, Or the illumined dust of golden flowers; And now it glides like tender colours spreading; And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth; _105 And now it winds, one torrent of broad light, Through the far valley with a hundred veins; And now once more within that narrow corner Masses itself into intensest splendour. And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground, _110 Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness; The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains That hems us in are kindled.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Rare: in faith! Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate His palace for this festival?—it is _115 A pleasure which you had not known before. I spy the boisterous guests already.
FAUST: How The children of the wind rage in the air! With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
NOTE: _117 How 1824; Now 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. _120 Beware! for if with them thou warrest In their fierce flight towards the wilderness, Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag Thy body to a grave in the abyss. A cloud thickens the night. _125 Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest! The owls fly out in strange affright; The columns of the evergreen palaces Are split and shattered; The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130 And ruinously overthrown, The trunks are crushed and shattered By the fierce blast’s unconquerable stress. Over each other crack and crash they all In terrible and intertangled fall; _135 And through the ruins of the shaken mountain The airs hiss and howl— It is not the voice of the fountain, Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl. Dost thou not hear? _140 Strange accents are ringing Aloft, afar, anear? The witches are singing! The torrent of a raging wizard song Streams the whole mountain along. _145
NOTE: _132 shattered]scattered Rossetti.
CHORUS OF WITCHES: The stubble is yellow, the corn is green, Now to the Brocken the witches go; The mighty multitude here may be seen Gathering, wizard and witch, below. Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150 Hey over stock! and hey over stone! ’Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done? Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
NOTE: _150 Urian]Urean editions 1824, 1839.
A VOICE: Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine, Old Baubo rideth alone. _155
CHORUS: Honour her, to whom honour is due, Old mother Baubo, honour to you! An able sow, with old Baubo upon her, Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour! The legion of witches is coming behind, _160 Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind—
A VOICE: Which way comest thou?
A VOICE: Over Ilsenstein; The owl was awake in the white moonshine; I saw her at rest in her downy nest, And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. _165
NOTE: _165 eyne 1839, 2nd edition; eye 1822, 1824, 1839, 1st edition.
VOICES: And you may now as well take your course on to Hell, Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE: She dropped poison upon me as I passed. Here are the wounds—
CHORUS OF WITCHES: Come away! come along! The way is wide, the way is long, _170 But what is that for a Bedlam throng? Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom. The child in the cradle lies strangled at home, And the mother is clapping her hands.—
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1: We glide in Like snails when the women are all away; _175 And from a house once given over to sin Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2: A thousand steps must a woman take, Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE: Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee. _180
NOTE: _180 Felsensee 1862 (“Relics of Shelley”, page 96); Felumee 1822; Felunsee editions 1824, 1839.
VOICES BELOW: With what joy would we fly through the upper sky! We are washed, we are ‘nointed, stark naked are we; But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
NOTE: _183 are editions 1839; is 1822, 1824.
BOTH CHORUSES: The wind is still, the stars are fled, _185 The melancholy moon is dead; The magic notes, like spark on spark, Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW: Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE: Out of the crannies of the rocks _190 Who calls?
VOICES BELOW: Oh, let me join your flocks! I, three hundred years have striven To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,— And still in vain. Oh, might I be With company akin to me! _195
BOTH CHORUSES: Some on a ram and some on a prong, On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along; Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW: I have been tripping this many an hour: Are the others already so far before? _200 No quiet at home, and no peace abroad! And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES: Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint! A witch to be strong must anoint—anoint— Then every trough will be boat enough; _205 With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky, Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES: We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground; Witch-legions thicken around and around; Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. _210
[THEY DESCEND.]
MEPHISTOPHELES: What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling; What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling; What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning, As Heaven and Earth were overturning. There is a true witch element about us; _215 Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:— Where are you?
NOTE: _217 What! wanting, 1822.
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]: Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES: What! I must exert my authority in the house. Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people. Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step _220 Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd: They are too mad for people of my sort. Just there shines a peculiar kind of light— Something attracts me in those bushes. Come This way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225
FAUST: Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on— ’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out Into the Brocken upon May-day night, And then to isolate oneself in scorn, Disgusted with the humours of the time. _230
MEPHISTOPHELES: See yonder, round a many-coloured flame A merry club is huddled altogether: Even with such little people as sit there One would not be alone.
FAUST: Would that I were Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235 Where the blind million rush impetuously To meet the evil ones; there might I solve Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Yet Many a riddle there is tied anew Inextricably. Let the great world rage! _240 We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings. ’Tis an old custom. Men have ever built Their own small world in the great world of all. I see young witches naked there, and old ones Wisely attired with greater decency. _245 Be guided now by me, and you shall buy A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble. I hear them tune their instruments—one must Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you Among them; and what there you do and see, _250 As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be. How say you now? this space is wide enough— Look forth, you cannot see the end of it— An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they Who throng around them seem innumerable: _255 Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love, And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend, What is there better in the world than this?
NOTE: _254 An 1824; A editions 1839.
FAUST: In introducing us, do you assume The character of Wizard or of Devil? _260
MEPHISTOPHELES: In truth, I generally go about In strict incognito; and yet one likes To wear one’s orders upon gala days. I have no ribbon at my knee; but here At home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265 See you that snail there?—she comes creeping up, And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something. I could not, if I would, mask myself here. Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire: I’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270 [TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.] Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here? You ought to be with the young rioters Right in the thickest of the revelry— But every one is best content at home.
NOTE: _264 my wanting, 1822.
General. Who dare confide in right or a just claim? _275 So much as I had done for them! and now— With women and the people ’tis the same, Youth will stand foremost ever,—age may go To the dark grave unhonoured.
NOTE: _275 right editions 1824, 1839; night 1822.
MINISTER: Nowadays People assert their rights: they go too far; _280 But as for me, the good old times I praise; Then we were all in all—’twas something worth One’s while to be in place and wear a star; That was indeed the golden age on earth.
PARVENU: We too are active, and we did and do _285 What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round, A spoke of Fortune’s wheel, and keep our ground.
NOTE: _285 Parvenu: (Note) A sort of fundholder 1822, editions 1824, 1839.
AUTHOR: Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense And ponderous volume? ’tis impertinence _290 To write what none will read, therefore will I To please the young and thoughtless people try.
NOTE: _290 ponderous 1824; wonderous 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]: I find the people ripe for the last day, Since I last came up to the wizard mountain; And as my little cask runs turbid now, _295 So is the world drained to the dregs.
PEDLAR-WITCH: Look here, Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast; And lose the chance of a good pennyworth. I have a pack full of the choicest wares Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300 Is nothing like what may be found on earth; Nothing that in a moment will make rich Men and the world with fine malicious mischief— There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl From which consuming poison may be drained _305 By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel, The price of an abandoned maiden’s shame; No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose, Or stabs the wearer’s enemy in the back; No—
MEPHISTOPHELES: Gossip, you know little of these times. _310 What has been, has been; what is done, is past, They shape themselves into the innovations They breed, and innovation drags us with it. The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us: You think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315
FAUST: What is that yonder?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Mark her well. It is Lilith.
FAUST: Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Lilith, the first wife of Adam. Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man’s neck, _320 She will not ever set him free again.
FAUST: There sit a girl and an old woman—they Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
MEPHISTOPHELES: There is no rest to-night for any one: When one dance ends another is begun; _325 Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND MEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN.]
FAUST: I had once a lovely dream In which I saw an apple-tree, Where two fair apples with their gleam To climb and taste attracted me. _330
NOTES: _327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript (“Westminster Review”, July, 1870); wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL: She with apples you desired From Paradise came long ago: With you I feel that if required, Such still within my garden grow.
...
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: What is this cursed multitude about? _335 Have we not long since proved to demonstration That ghosts move not on ordinary feet? But these are dancing just like men and women.
NOTE: _335 Procto-Phantasmist]Brocto-Phantasmist editions 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL: What does he want then at our ball?
FAUST: Oh! he Is far above us all in his conceit: _340 Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment; And any step which in our dance we tread, If it be left out of his reckoning, Is not to be considered as a step. There are few things that scandalize him not: _345 And when you whirl round in the circle now, As he went round the wheel in his old mill, He says that you go wrong in all respects, Especially if you congratulate him Upon the strength of the resemblance.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: Fly! _350 Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there! In this enlightened age too, since you have been Proved not to exist!—But this infernal brood Will hear no reason and endure no rule. Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355 How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish Of superstition, and the world will not Come clean with all my pains!—it is a case Unheard of!
NOTE: _355 pond wanting in Boscombe manuscript.
THE GIRL: Then leave off teasing us so.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360 That I should not regret this despotism Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not. To-night I shall make poor work of it, Yet I will take a round with you, and hope Before my last step in the living dance _365 To beat the poet and the devil together.
MEPHISTOPHELES: At last he will sit down in some foul puddle; That is his way of solacing himself; Until some leech, diverted with his gravity, Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370 [TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE.] Why do you let that fair girl pass from you, Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
FAUST: A red mouse in the middle of her singing Sprung from her mouth.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That was all right, my friend: Be it enough that the mouse was not gray. _375 Do not disturb your hour of happiness With close consideration of such trifles.
FAUST: Then saw I—
MEPHISTOPHELES: What?
FAUST: Seest thou not a pale, Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away? She drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380 And seems as if she moved with shackled feet: I cannot overcome the thought that she Is like poor Margaret.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Let it be—pass on— No good can come of it—it is not well To meet it—it is an enchanted phantom, _385 A lifeless idol; with its numbing look, It freezes up the blood of man; and they Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone, Like those who saw Medusa.
FAUST: Oh, too true! Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390 Which no beloved hand has closed, alas! That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me— Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
NOTE: _392 breast editions 1839; heart 1822, 1824.
MEPHISTOPHELES: It is all magic, poor deluded fool! She looks to every one like his first love. _395
FAUST: Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn My looks from her sweet piteous countenance. How strangely does a single blood-red line, Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife, Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Ay, she can carry _400 Her head under her arm upon occasion; Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures End in delusion.—Gain this rising ground, It is as airy here as in a... And if I am not mightily deceived, _405 I see a theatre.—What may this mean?
ATTENDANT: Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for ’tis The custom now to represent that number. ’Tis written by a Dilettante, and The actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410 Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish. I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
***
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB.
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.
[An edition (250 copies) of “Queen Mab” was printed at London in the summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer, appears on the title-page (see “Bibliographical List”). Of this edition about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9 were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were published by Shelley in the “Alastor” volume of 1816, under the title, “The Daemon of the World”. The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., from a printed copy of “Queen Mab” with Shelley’s manuscript corrections. See “The Shelley Library”, pages 36-44, for a description of this copy, which is in Mr. Forman’s possession. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the “Poetical Works” of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting) in the 2nd edition of the “Poetical Works”, 1839 (same editor).
“Queen Mab” was probably written during the year 1812—it is first heard of at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 (“Shelley Memorials”, page 39)—but the text may be assumed to include earlier material.]
ECRASEZ L’INFAME!—Correspondance de Voltaire.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis; Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.
...
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae. Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.—Lucret. lib. 4.
Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso.—Archimedes.
TO HARRIET *****.
Whose is the love that gleaming through the world, Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? Whose is the warm and partial praise, Virtue’s most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul _5 Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow? Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on, And loved mankind the more?
HARRIET! on thine:—thou wert my purer mind; Thou wert the inspiration of my song; _10 Thine are these early wilding flowers, Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love; And know, though time may change and years may roll, Each floweret gathered in my heart _15 It consecrates to thine.
QUEEN MAB.
1.
How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon With lips of lurid blue; The other, rosy as the morn _5 When throned on ocean’s wave It blushes o’er the world: Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10 Seized on her sinless soul? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, _15 That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction’s breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin? _20 Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o’er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning _25 Chaseth into darkness? Will Ianthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life and rapture from her smile? _30
Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, And silent those sweet lips, Once breathing eloquence, That might have soothed a tiger’s rage, _35 Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed, And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed: _40 Her golden tresses shade The bosom’s stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound? _45 ’Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore, The enthusiast hears at evening: ’Tis softer than the west wind’s sigh; _50 ’Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Of that strange lyre whose strings The genii of the breezes sweep: Those lines of rainbow light Are like the moonbeams when they fall _55 Through some cathedral window, but the tints Are such as may not find Comparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen! Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60 Their filmy pennons at her word they furl, And stop obedient to the reins of light: These the Queen of Spells drew in, She spread a charm around the spot, And leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65 Long did she gaze, and silently, Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams, When silvery clouds float through the ‘wildered brain, When every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70 Astonishes, enraptures, elevates, When fancy at a glance combines The wondrous and the beautiful,— So bright, so fair, so wild a shape Hath ever yet beheld, _75 As that which reined the coursers of the air, And poured the magic of her gaze Upon the maiden’s sleep.
The broad and yellow moon Shone dimly through her form— _80 That form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car Moved not the moonlight’s line: ’Twas not an earthly pageant: Those who had looked upon the sight, _85 Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not the night-wind’s rush, Heard not an earthly sound, _90 Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That filled the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy’s frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud, That catches but the palest tinge of even, _95 And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight’s shadow, Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn, Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100 As that which, bursting from the Fairy’s form, Spread a purpureal halo round the scene, Yet with an undulating motion, Swayed to her outline gracefully.
From her celestial car _105 The Fairy Queen descended, And thrice she waved her wand Circled with wreaths of amaranth: Her thin and misty form Moved with the moving air, _110 And the clear silver tones, As thus she spoke, were such As are unheard by all but gifted ear.
FAIRY: ‘Stars! your balmiest influence shed! Elements! your wrath suspend! _115 Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds That circle thy domain! Let not a breath be seen to stir Around yon grass-grown ruin’s height, Let even the restless gossamer _120 Sleep on the moveless air! Soul of Ianthe! thou, Judged alone worthy of the envied boon, That waits the good and the sincere; that waits Those who have struggled, and with resolute will _125 Vanquished earth’s pride and meanness, burst the chains, The icy chains of custom, and have shone The day-stars of their age;—Soul of Ianthe! Awake! arise!’
Sudden arose _130 Ianthe’s Soul; it stood All beautiful in naked purity, The perfect semblance of its bodily frame. Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness _135 Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body lay Wrapped in the depth of slumber: _140 Its features were fixed and meaningless, Yet animal life was there, And every organ yet performed Its natural functions: ’twas a sight Of wonder to behold the body and soul. _145 The self-same lineaments, the same Marks of identity were there: Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven, Pants for its sempiternal heritage, And ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150 Wantons in endless being. The other, for a time the unwilling sport Of circumstance and passion, struggles on; Fleets through its sad duration rapidly: Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155 Rots, perishes, and passes.
FAIRY: ‘Spirit! who hast dived so deep; Spirit! who hast soared so high; Thou the fearless, thou the mild, Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, _160 Ascend the car with me.’
SPIRIT: ‘Do I dream? Is this new feeling But a visioned ghost of slumber? If indeed I am a soul, A free, a disembodied soul, _165 Speak again to me.’
FAIRY: ‘I am the Fairy MAB: to me ’tis given The wonders of the human world to keep: The secrets of the immeasurable past, In the unfailing consciences of men, _170 Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find: The future, from the causes which arise In each event, I gather: not the sting Which retributive memory implants In the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175 Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb Which virtue’s votary feels when he sums up The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day, Are unforeseen, unregistered by me: And it is yet permitted me, to rend _180 The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit, Clothed in its changeless purity, may know How soonest to accomplish the great end For which it hath its being, and may taste That peace, which in the end all life will share. _185 This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul, Ascend the car with me!’
The chains of earth’s immurement Fell from Ianthe’s spirit; They shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190 Beneath a wakened giant’s strength. She knew her glorious change, And felt in apprehension uncontrolled New raptures opening round: Each day-dream of her mortal life, _195 Each frenzied vision of the slumbers That closed each well-spent day, Seemed now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded; The silver clouds disparted; _200 And as the car of magic they ascended, Again the speechless music swelled, Again the coursers of the air Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen Shaking the beamy reins _205 Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on. The night was fair, and countless stars Studded Heaven’s dark blue vault,— Just o’er the eastern wave _210 Peeped the first faint smile of morn:— The magic car moved on— From the celestial hoofs The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, And where the burning wheels _215 Eddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak, Was traced a line of lightning. Now it flew far above a rock, The utmost verge of earth, The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220 Lowered o’er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot’s path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous Ocean lay. The mirror of its stillness showed _225 The pale and waning stars, The chariot’s fiery track, And the gray light of morn Tinging those fleecy clouds That canopied the dawn. _230 Seemed it, that the chariot’s way Lay through the midst of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged With shades of infinite colour, And semicircled with a belt _235 Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on. As they approached their goal The coursers seemed to gather speed; The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240 Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere; The sun’s unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave; Its rays of rapid light Parted around the chariot’s swifter course, _245 And fell, like ocean’s feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel’s prow.
The magic car moved on. Earth’s distant orb appeared _250 The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven; Whilst round the chariot’s way Innumerable systems rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory. _255 It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o’er the western sea; Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260 Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed, Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature! here! In this interminable wilderness _265 Of worlds, at whose immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze _270 Is less instinct with thee: Yet not the meanest worm That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature! thou! _275 Imperishable as this scene, Here is thy fitting temple.
2.
If solitude hath ever led thy steps To the wild Ocean’s echoing shore, And thou hast lingered there, Until the sun’s broad orb Seemed resting on the burnished wave, _5 Thou must have marked the lines Of purple gold, that motionless Hung o’er the sinking sphere: Thou must have marked the billowy clouds Edged with intolerable radiancy _10 Towering like rocks of jet Crowned with a diamond wreath. And yet there is a moment, When the sun’s highest point Peeps like a star o’er Ocean’s western edge, _15 When those far clouds of feathery gold, Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark blue sea; Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, And furled its wearied wing _20 Within the Fairy’s fane.
Yet not the golden islands Gleaming in yon flood of light, Nor the feathery curtains Stretching o’er the sun’s bright couch, _25 Nor the burnished Ocean waves Paving that gorgeous dome, So fair, so wonderful a sight As Mab’s aethereal palace could afford. Yet likest evening’s vault, that faery Hall! _30 As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread Its floors of flashing light, Its vast and azure dome, Its fertile golden islands Floating on a silver sea; _35 Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted Through clouds of circumambient darkness, And pearly battlements around Looked o’er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved. _40 The Fairy and the Spirit Entered the Hall of Spells: Those golden clouds That rolled in glittering billows Beneath the azure canopy _45 With the aethereal footsteps trembled not: The light and crimson mists, Floating to strains of thrilling melody Through that unearthly dwelling, Yielded to every movement of the will. _50 Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned, And, for the varied bliss that pressed around, Used not the glorious privilege Of virtue and of wisdom.
‘Spirit!’ the Fairy said, _55 And pointed to the gorgeous dome, ‘This is a wondrous sight And mocks all human grandeur; But, were it virtue’s only meed, to dwell In a celestial palace, all resigned _60 To pleasurable impulses, immured Within the prison of itself, the will Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled. Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come! This is thine high reward:—the past shall rise; _65 Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach The secrets of the future.’
The Fairy and the Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement.— Below lay stretched the universe! _70 There, far as the remotest line That bounds imagination’s flight, Countless and unending orbs In mazy motion intermingled, Yet still fulfilled immutably _75 Eternal Nature’s law. Above, below, around, The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony; Each with undeviating aim, _80 In eloquent silence, through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light That twinkled in the misty distance: None but a spirit’s eye _85 Might ken that rolling orb; None but a spirit’s eye, And in no other place But that celestial dwelling, might behold Each action of this earth’s inhabitants. _90 But matter, space and time In those aereal mansions cease to act; And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps The harvest of its excellence, o’er-bounds Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95 Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth. The Spirit’s intellectual eye Its kindred beings recognized. The thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100 Seemed like an ant-hill’s citizens. How wonderful! that even The passions, prejudices, interests, That sway the meanest being, the weak touch That moves the finest nerve, _105 And in one human brain Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link In the great chain of Nature.
‘Behold,’ the Fairy cried, ‘Palmyra’s ruined palaces!— _110 Behold! where grandeur frowned; Behold! where pleasure smiled; What now remains?—the memory Of senselessness and shame— What is immortal there? _115 Nothing—it stands to tell A melancholy tale, to give An awful warning: soon Oblivion will steal silently The remnant of its fame. _120 Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o’er prostrate millions trod— The earthquakes of the human race; Like them, forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past. _125
‘Beside the eternal Nile, The Pyramids have risen. Nile shall pursue his changeless way: Those Pyramids shall fall; Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130 The spot whereon they stood! Their very site shall be forgotten, As is their builder’s name!
‘Behold yon sterile spot; Where now the wandering Arab’s tent _135 Flaps in the desert-blast. There once old Salem’s haughty fane Reared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes, And in the blushing face of day Exposed its shameful glory. _140 Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane; and many a father; Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task _145 Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard’s vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150 They rushed to war, tore from the mother’s womb The unborn child,—old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends: But what was he who taught them that the God _155 Of nature and benevolence hath given A special sanction to the trade of blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing _160 Itself into forgetfulness.
‘Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood, There is a moral desert now: The mean and miserable huts, The yet more wretched palaces, _165 Contrasted with those ancient fanes, Now crumbling to oblivion; The long and lonely colonnades, Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks, Seem like a well-known tune, _170 Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear, Remembered now in sadness. But, oh! how much more changed, How gloomier is the contrast Of human nature there! _175 Where Socrates expired, a tyrant’s slave, A coward and a fool, spreads death around— Then, shuddering, meets his own. Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, A cowled and hypocritical monk _180 Prays, curses and deceives.
‘Spirit, ten thousand years Have scarcely passed away, Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks His enemy’s blood, and aping Europe’s sons, _185 Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city, Metropolis of the western continent: There, now, the mossy column-stone, Indented by Time’s unrelaxing grasp, _190 Which once appeared to brave All, save its country’s ruin; There the wide forest scene, Rude in the uncultivated loveliness Of gardens long run wild, _195 Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps Chance in that desert has delayed, Thus to have stood since earth was what it is. Yet once it was the busiest haunt, Whither, as to a common centre, flocked _200 Strangers, and ships, and merchandise: Once peace and freedom blessed The cultivated plain: But wealth, that curse of man, Blighted the bud of its prosperity: _205 Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty, Fled, to return not, until man shall know That they alone can give the bliss Worthy a soul that claims Its kindred with eternity. _210
‘There’s not one atom of yon earth But once was living man; Nor the minutest drop of rain, That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, But flowed in human veins: _215 And from the burning plains Where Libyan monsters yell, From the most gloomy glens Of Greenland’s sunless clime, To where the golden fields _220 Of fertile England spread Their harvest to the day, Thou canst not find one spot Whereon no city stood.
‘How strange is human pride! _225 I tell thee that those living things, To whom the fragile blade of grass, That springeth in the morn And perisheth ere noon, Is an unbounded world; _230 I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere, Think, feel and live like man; That their affections and antipathies, _235 Like his, produce the laws Ruling their moral state; And the minutest throb That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, _240 Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws That rule yon rolling orbs.’
The Fairy paused. The Spirit, In ecstasy of admiration, felt _245 All knowledge of the past revived; the events Of old and wondrous times, Which dim tradition interruptedly Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded In just perspective to the view; _250 Yet dim from their infinitude. The Spirit seemed to stand High on an isolated pinnacle; The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe _255 Above, and all around Nature’s unchanging harmony.
3.
‘Fairy!’ the Spirit said, And on the Queen of Spells Fixed her aethereal eyes, ‘I thank thee. Thou hast given A boon which I will not resign, and taught _5 A lesson not to be unlearned. I know The past, and thence I will essay to glean A warning for the future, so that man May profit by his errors, and derive Experience from his folly: _10 For, when the power of imparting joy Is equal to the will, the human soul Requires no other Heaven.’
MAB: ‘Turn thee, surpassing Spirit! Much yet remains unscanned. _15 Thou knowest how great is man, Thou knowest his imbecility: Yet learn thou what he is: Yet learn the lofty destiny Which restless time prepares _20 For every living soul.
‘Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid Yon populous city rears its thousand towers And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25 Encompass it around: the dweller there Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not The curses of the fatherless, the groans Of those who have no friend? He passes on: The King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30 That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave Even to the basest appetites—that man Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles At the deep curses which the destitute _35 Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan But for those morsels which his wantonness Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save All that they love from famine: when he hears _40 The tale of horror, to some ready-made face Of hypocritical assent he turns, Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him, Flushes his bloated cheek. Now to the meal Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45 His palled unwilling appetite. If gold, Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled From every clime, could force the loathing sense To overcome satiety,—if wealth The spring it draws from poisons not,—or vice, _50 Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not Its food to deadliest venom; then that king Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils His unforced task, when he returns at even, And by the blazing faggot meets again _55 Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped, Tastes not a sweeter meal. Behold him now Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon The slumber of intemperance subsides, _60 And conscience, that undying serpent, calls Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task. Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye— Oh! mark that deadly visage.’
KING: ‘No cessation! Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65 I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!—Not one moment Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace! Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity In penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest With danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn’st _70 The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace! Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed One drop of balm upon my withered soul.’
THE FAIRY: ‘Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart, And Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75 In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters; His slumbers are but varied agonies, They prey like scorpions on the springs of life. There needeth not the hell that bigots frame To punish those who err: earth in itself _80 Contains at once the evil and the cure; And all-sufficing Nature can chastise Those who transgress her law,—she only knows How justly to proportion to the fault The punishment it merits. Is it strange _85 That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe? Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns, Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90 Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds Shut him from all that’s good or dear on earth, His soul asserts not its humanity? That man’s mild nature rises not in war Against a king’s employ? No—’tis not strange. _95 He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a KING and virtue. Stranger yet, To those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100 The future from the present, it may seem, That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes Of this unnatural being; not one wretch, Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed Is earth’s unpitying bosom, rears an arm To dash him from his throne! _105 Those gilded flies That, basking in the sunshine of a court, Fatten on its corruption!—what are they? —The drones of the community; they feed On the mechanic’s labour: the starved hind _110 For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form, Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes A sunless life in the unwholesome mine, Drags out in labour a protracted death, _115 To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil, That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
‘Whence, think’st thou, kings and parasites arose? Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury _120 On those who build their palaces, and bring Their daily bread?—From vice, black loathsome vice; From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong; From all that ‘genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125 Revenge, and murder...And when Reason’s voice, Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue Is peace, and happiness and harmony; _130 When man’s maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood;—kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135 Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. Where is the fame Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140 From Time’s light footfall, the minutest wave That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today Stern is the tyrant’s mandate, red the gaze That flashes desolation, strong the arm _145 That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes! That mandate is a thunder-peal that died In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash On which the midnight closed, and on that arm The worm has made his meal. The virtuous man, _150 Who, great in his humility, as kings Are little in their grandeur; he who leads Invincibly a life of resolute good, And stands amid the silent dungeon depths More free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155 Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove To bind the impassive spirit;—when he falls, His mild eye beams benevolence no more: Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve; Sunk Reason’s simple eloquence, that rolled _160 But to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave Hath quenched that eye, and Death’s relentless frost Withered that arm: but the unfading fame Which Virtue hangs upon its votary’s tomb; The deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165 Call to their mind and tremble; the remembrance With which the happy spirit contemplates Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth, Shall never pass away.
‘Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; _170 The subject, not the citizen: for kings And subjects, mutual foes, forever play A losing game into each other’s hands, Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. _175 Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. When Nero, _180 High over flaming Rome, with savage joy Lowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld The frightful desolation spread, and felt A new-created sense within his soul _185 Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound; Think’st thou his grandeur had not overcome The force of human kindness? and, when Rome, With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down, Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood _190 Had not submissive abjectness destroyed Nature’s suggestions? Look on yonder earth: The golden harvests spring; the unfailing sun Sheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees, Arise in due succession; all things speak _195 Peace, harmony, and love. The universe, In Nature’s silent eloquence, declares That all fulfil the works of love and joy,— All but the outcast, Man. He fabricates The sword which stabs his peace; he cherisheth _200 The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raiseth up The tyrant, whose delight is in his woe, Whose sport is in his agony. Yon sun, Lights it the great alone? Yon silver beams, Sleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch _205 Than on the dome of kings? Is mother Earth A step-dame to her numerous sons, who earn Her unshared gifts with unremitting toil; A mother only to those puling babes Who, nursed in ease and luxury, make men _210 The playthings of their babyhood, and mar, In self-important childishness, that peace Which men alone appreciate?
‘Spirit of Nature! no. The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs _215 Alike in every human heart. Thou, aye, erectest there Thy throne of power unappealable: Thou art the judge beneath whose nod Man’s brief and frail authority _220 Is powerless as the wind That passeth idly by. Thine the tribunal which surpasseth The show of human justice, As God surpasses man. _225
‘Spirit of Nature! thou Life of interminable multitudes; Soul of those mighty spheres Whose changeless paths through Heaven’s deep silence lie; Soul of that smallest being, _230 The dwelling of whose life Is one faint April sun-gleam;— Man, like these passive things, Thy will unconsciously fulfilleth: Like theirs, his age of endless peace, _235 Which time is fast maturing, Will swiftly, surely come; And the unbounded frame, which thou pervadest, Will be without a flaw Marring its perfect symmetry. _240
4.
‘How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening’s ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven’s ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, _5 Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love had spread To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, Robed in a garment of untrodden snow; Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, _10 So stainless, that their white and glittering spires Tinge not the moon’s pure beam; yon castled steep, Whose banner hangeth o’er the time-worn tower So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it A metaphor of peace;—all form a scene _15 Where musing Solitude might love to lift Her soul above this sphere of earthliness; Where Silence undisturbed might watch alone, So cold, so bright, so still. The orb of day, In southern climes, o’er ocean’s waveless field _20 Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath Steals o’er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day; And vesper’s image on the western main Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes: _25 Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass, Roll o’er the blackened waters; the deep roar Of distant thunder mutters awfully; Tempest unfolds its pinion o’er the gloom That shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend, _30 With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey; The torn deep yawns,—the vessel finds a grave Beneath its jagged gulf. Ah! whence yon glare That fires the arch of Heaven!—that dark red smoke Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched _35 In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round! Hark to that roar, whose swift and deaf’ning peals In countless echoes through the mountains ring, Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne! _40 Now swells the intermingling din; the jar Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb; The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men Inebriate with rage:—loud, and more loud _45 The discord grows; till pale Death shuts the scene, And o’er the conqueror and the conquered draws His cold and bloody shroud.—Of all the men Whom day’s departing beam saw blooming there, In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts _50 That beat with anxious life at sunset there; How few survive, how few are beating now! All is deep silence, like the fearful calm That slumbers in the storm’s portentous pause; Save when the frantic wail of widowed love _55 Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay Wrapped round its struggling powers. The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away, _60 And the bright beams of frosty morning dance Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood Even to the forest’s depth, and scattered arms, And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments _65 Death’s self could change not, mark the dreadful path Of the outsallying victors: far behind, Black ashes note where their proud city stood. Within yon forest is a gloomy glen— Each tree which guards its darkness from the day, Waves o’er a warrior’s tomb. I see thee shrink, _70 Surpassing Spirit!—wert thou human else? I see a shade of doubt and horror fleet Across thy stainless features: yet fear not; This is no unconnected misery, Nor stands uncaused, and irretrievable. _75 Man’s evil nature, that apology Which kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set up For their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the blood Which desolates the discord-wasted land. From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, _80 Whose safety is man’s deep unbettered woe, Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall; And where its venomed exhalations spread Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay _85 Quenching the serpent’s famine, and their bones Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast, A garden shall arise, in loveliness Surpassing fabled Eden. Hath Nature’s soul, That formed this world so beautiful, that spread _90 Earth’s lap with plenty, and life’s smallest chord Strung to unchanging unison, that gave The happy birds their dwelling in the grove, That yielded to the wanderers of the deep The lovely silence of the unfathomed main, _95 And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust With spirit, thought, and love; on Man alone,
## Partial in causeless malice, wantonly
Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soul Blasted with withering curses; placed afar _100 The meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp, But serving on the frightful gulf to glare, Rent wide beneath his footsteps? Nature!—no! Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower Even in its tender bud; their influence darts _105 Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins Of desolate society. The child, Ere he can lisp his mother’s sacred name, Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby-sword even in a hero’s mood. _110 This infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated earth; whilst specious names, Learned in soft childhood’s unsuspecting hour, Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dims Bright Reason’s ray, and sanctifies the sword _115 Upraised to shed a brother’s innocent blood. Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man Inherits vice and misery, when Force And Falsehood hang even o’er the cradled babe Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good. _120 ‘Ah! to the stranger-soul, when first it peeps From its new tenement, and looks abroad For happiness and sympathy, how stern And desolate a tract is this wide world! How withered all the buds of natural good! _125 No shade, no shelter from the sweeping storms Of pitiless power! On its wretched frame, Poisoned, perchance, by the disease and woe Heaped on the wretched parent whence it sprung By morals, law, and custom, the pure winds _130 Of Heaven, that renovate the insect tribes, May breathe not. The untainting light of day May visit not its longings. It is bound Ere it has life: yea, all the chains are forged Long ere its being: all liberty and love _135 And peace is torn from its defencelessness; Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed To abjectness and bondage!
‘Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element: the block _140 That for uncounted ages has remained The moveless pillar of a mountain’s weight Is active, living spirit. Every grain Is sentient both in unity and part, And the minutest atom comprehends _145 A world of loves and hatreds; these beget Evil and good: hence truth and falsehood spring; Hence will and thought and action, all the germs Of pain or pleasure, sympathy or hate, That variegate the eternal universe. _150 Soul is not more polluted than the beams Of Heaven’s pure orb, ere round their rapid lines The taint of earth-born atmospheres arise.
‘Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve, on fancy’s boldest wing _155 To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. Or he is formed for abjectness and woe, To grovel on the dunghill of his fears, _160 To shrink at every sound, to quench the flame Of natural love in sensualism, to know That hour as blessed when on his worthless days The frozen hand of Death shall set its seal, Yet fear the cure, though hating the disease. _165 The one is man that shall hereafter be; The other, man as vice has made him now.
‘War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight, The lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade, And, to those royal murderers, whose mean thrones _170 Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore, The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean. Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround Their palaces, participate the crimes That force defends, and from a nation’s rage _175 Secure the crown, which all the curses reach That famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe. These are the hired bravos who defend The tyrant’s throne—the bullies of his fear: These are the sinks and channels of worst vice, _180 The refuse of society, the dregs Of all that is most vile: their cold hearts blend Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride, All that is mean and villanous, with rage Which hopelessness of good, and self-contempt, _185 Alone might kindle; they are decked in wealth, Honour and power, then are sent abroad To do their work. The pestilence that stalks In gloomy triumph through some eastern land Is less destroying. They cajole with gold, _190 And promises of fame, the thoughtless youth Already crushed with servitude: he knows His wretchedness too late, and cherishes Repentance for his ruin, when his doom Is sealed in gold and blood! _195 Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare The feet of Justice in the toils of law, Stand, ready to oppress the weaker still; And right or wrong will vindicate for gold, Sneering at public virtue, which beneath _200 Their pitiless tread lies torn and trampled, where Honour sits smiling at the sale of truth.
‘Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites, Without a hope, a passion, or a love, Who, through a life of luxury and lies, _205 Have crept by flattery to the seats of power, Support the system whence their honours flow... They have three words:—well tyrants know their use, Well pay them for the loan, with usury Torn from a bleeding world!—God, Hell, and Heaven. _210 A vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend, Whose mercy is a nickname for the rage Of tameless tigers hungering for blood. Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire, Where poisonous and undying worms prolong _215 Eternal misery to those hapless slaves Whose life has been a penance for its crimes. And Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie Their human nature, quake, believe, and cringe Before the mockeries of earthly power. _220
‘These tools the tyrant tempers to his work, Wields in his wrath, and as he wills destroys, Omnipotent in wickedness: the while Youth springs, age moulders, manhood tamely does His bidding, bribed by short-lived joys to lend _225 Force to the weakness of his trembling arm.
‘They rise, they fall; one generation comes Yielding its harvest to destruction’s scythe. It fades, another blossoms: yet behold! Red glows the tyrant’s stamp-mark on its bloom, _230 Withering and cankering deep its passive prime. He has invented lying words and modes, Empty and vain as his own coreless heart; Evasive meanings, nothings of much sound, To lure the heedless victim to the toils _235 Spread round the valley of its paradise.
‘Look to thyself, priest, conqueror, or prince! Whether thy trade is falsehood, and thy lusts Deep wallow in the earnings of the poor, With whom thy Master was:—or thou delight’st _240 In numbering o’er the myriads of thy slain, All misery weighing nothing in the scale Against thy short-lived fame: or thou dost load With cowardice and crime the groaning land, A pomp-fed king. Look to thy wretched self! _245 Ay, art thou not the veriest slave that e’er Crawled on the loathing earth? Are not thy days Days of unsatisfying listlessness? Dost thou not cry, ere night’s long rack is o’er, “When will the morning come?” Is not thy youth _250 A vain and feverish dream of sensualism? Thy manhood blighted with unripe disease? Are not thy views of unregretted death Drear, comfortless, and horrible? Thy mind, Is it not morbid as thy nerveless frame, _255 Incapable of judgement, hope, or love? And dost thou wish the errors to survive That bar thee from all sympathies of good, After the miserable interest Thou hold’st in their protraction? When the grave _260 Has swallowed up thy memory and thyself, Dost thou desire the bane that poisons earth To twine its roots around thy coffined clay, Spring from thy bones, and blossom on thy tomb, That of its fruit thy babes may eat and die? _265
NOTE: _176 Secures edition 1813.
5.
‘Thus do the generations of the earth Go to the grave, and issue from the womb, Surviving still the imperishable change That renovates the world; even as the leaves Which the keen frost-wind of the waning year _5 Has scattered on the forest soil, and heaped For many seasons there—though long they choke, Loading with loathsome rottenness the land, All germs of promise, yet when the tall trees From which they fell, shorn of their lovely shapes, _10 Lie level with the earth to moulder there, They fertilize the land they long deformed, Till from the breathing lawn a forest springs Of youth, integrity, and loveliness, Like that which gave it life, to spring and die. _15 Thus suicidal selfishness, that blights The fairest feelings of the opening heart, Is destined to decay, whilst from the soil Shall spring all virtue, all delight, all love, And judgement cease to wage unnatural war _20 With passion’s unsubduable array. Twin-sister of religion, selfishness! Rival in crime and falsehood, aping all The wanton horrors of her bloody play; Yet frozen, unimpassioned, spiritless, _25 Shunning the light, and owning not its name, Compelled, by its deformity, to screen, With flimsy veil of justice and of right, Its unattractive lineaments, that scare All, save the brood of ignorance: at once _30 The cause and the effect of tyranny; Unblushing, hardened, sensual, and vile; Dead to all love but of its abjectness, With heart impassive by more noble powers Than unshared pleasure, sordid gain, or fame; _35 Despising its own miserable being, Which still it longs, yet fears to disenthrall.
‘Hence commerce springs, the venal interchange Of all that human art or nature yield; Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand, _40 And natural kindness hasten to supply From the full fountain of its boundless love, For ever stifled, drained, and tainted now. Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring, _45 But Poverty and Wealth with equal hand Scatter their withering curses, and unfold The doors of premature and violent death, To pining famine and full-fed disease, To all that shares the lot of human life, _50 Which poisoned, body and soul, scarce drags the chain, That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind.
‘Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: _55 Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. _60 But in the temple of their hireling hearts Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue.
‘Since tyrants, by the sale of human life, Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and fame _65 To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride, Success has sanctioned to a credulous world The ruin, the disgrace, the woe of war. His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes The despot numbers; from his cabinet _70 These puppets of his schemes he moves at will, Even as the slaves by force or famine driven, Beneath a vulgar master, to perform A task of cold and brutal drudgery;— Hardened to hope, insensible to fear, _75 Scarce living pulleys of a dead machine, Mere wheels of work and articles of trade, That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth!
‘The harmony and happiness of man Yields to the wealth of nations; that which lifts _80 His nature to the heaven of its pride, Is bartered for the poison of his soul; The weight that drags to earth his towering hopes, Blighting all prospect but of selfish gain, Withering all passion but of slavish fear, _85 Extinguishing all free and generous love Of enterprise and daring, even the pulse That fancy kindles in the beating heart To mingle with sensation, it destroys,— Leaves nothing but the sordid lust of self, _90 The grovelling hope of interest and gold, Unqualified, unmingled, unredeemed Even by hypocrisy. And statesmen boast Of wealth! The wordy eloquence, that lives After the ruin of their hearts, can gild _95 The bitter poison of a nation’s woe, Can turn the worship of the servile mob To their corrupt and glaring idol, Fame, From Virtue, trampled by its iron tread, Although its dazzling pedestal be raised _100 Amid the horrors of a limb-strewn field, With desolated dwellings smoking round. The man of ease, who, by his warm fireside, To deeds of charitable intercourse, And bare fulfilment of the common laws _105 Of decency and prejudice, confines The struggling nature of his human heart, Is duped by their cold sophistry; he sheds A passing tear perchance upon the wreck Of earthly peace, when near his dwelling’s door _110 The frightful waves are driven,—when his son Is murdered by the tyrant, or religion Drives his wife raving mad. But the poor man, Whose life is misery, and fear, and care; Whom the morn wakens but to fruitless toil; _115 Who ever hears his famished offspring’s scream, Whom their pale mother’s uncomplaining gaze For ever meets, and the proud rich man’s eye Flashing command, and the heart-breaking scene Of thousands like himself;—he little heeds _120 The rhetoric of tyranny; his hate Is quenchless as his wrongs; he laughs to scorn The vain and bitter mockery of words, Feeling the horror of the tyrant’s deeds, And unrestrained but by the arm of power, _125 That knows and dreads his enmity.
‘The iron rod of Penury still compels Her wretched slave to bow the knee to wealth, And poison, with unprofitable toil, A life too void of solace to confirm _130 The very chains that bind him to his doom. Nature, impartial in munificence, Has gifted man with all-subduing will. Matter, with all its transitory shapes, Lies subjected and plastic at his feet, _135 That, weak from bondage, tremble as they tread. How many a rustic Milton has passed by, Stifling the speechless longings of his heart, In unremitting drudgery and care! How many a vulgar Cato has compelled _140 His energies, no longer tameless then, To mould a pin, or fabricate a nail! How many a Newton, to whose passive ken Those mighty spheres that gem infinity Were only specks of tinsel, fixed in Heaven _145 To light the midnights of his native town!
‘Yet every heart contains perfection’s germ: The wisest of the sages of the earth, That ever from the stores of reason drew Science and truth, and virtue’s dreadless tone, _150 Were but a weak and inexperienced boy, Proud, sensual, unimpassioned, unimbued With pure desire and universal love, Compared to that high being, of cloudless brain, Untainted passion, elevated will, _155 Which Death (who even would linger long in awe Within his noble presence, and beneath His changeless eyebeam) might alone subdue. Him, every slave now dragging through the filth Of some corrupted city his sad life, _160 Pining with famine, swoln with luxury, Blunting the keenness of his spiritual sense With narrow schemings and unworthy cares, Or madly rushing through all violent crime, To move the deep stagnation of his soul,— _165 Might imitate and equal. But mean lust Has bound its chains so tight around the earth, That all within it but the virtuous man Is venal: gold or fame will surely reach The price prefixed by selfishness, to all _170 But him of resolute and unchanging will; Whom, nor the plaudits of a servile crowd, Nor the vile joys of tainting luxury, Can bribe to yield his elevated soul To Tyranny or Falsehood, though they wield _175 With blood-red hand the sceptre of the world.
‘All things are sold: the very light of Heaven Is venal; earth’s unsparing gifts of love, The smallest and most despicable things That lurk in the abysses of the deep, _180 All objects of our life, even life itself, And the poor pittance which the laws allow Of liberty, the fellowship of man, Those duties which his heart of human love Should urge him to perform instinctively, _185 Are bought and sold as in a public mart Of undisguising selfishness, that sets On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign. Even love is sold; the solace of all woe Is turned to deadliest agony, old age _190 Shivers in selfish beauty’s loathing arms, And youth’s corrupted impulses prepare A life of horror from the blighting bane Of commerce; whilst the pestilence that springs From unenjoying sensualism, has filled _195 All human life with hydra-headed woes.
‘Falsehood demands but gold to pay the pangs Of outraged conscience; for the slavish priest Sets no great value on his hireling faith: A little passing pomp, some servile souls, _200 Whom cowardice itself might safely chain, Or the spare mite of avarice could bribe To deck the triumph of their languid zeal, Can make him minister to tyranny. More daring crime requires a loftier meed: _205 Without a shudder, the slave-soldier lends His arm to murderous deeds, and steels his heart, When the dread eloquence of dying men, Low mingling on the lonely field of fame, Assails that nature, whose applause he sells _210 For the gross blessings of a patriot mob, For the vile gratitude of heartless kings, And for a cold world’s good word,—viler still!
‘There is a nobler glory, which survives Until our being fades, and, solacing _215 All human care, accompanies its change; Deserts not virtue in the dungeon’s gloom, And, in the precincts of the palace, guides Its footsteps through that labyrinth of crime; Imbues his lineaments with dauntlessness, _220 Even when, from Power’s avenging hand, he takes Its sweetest, last and noblest title—death; —The consciousness of good, which neither gold, Nor sordid fame, nor hope of heavenly bliss Can purchase; but a life of resolute good,— _225 Unalterable will, quenchless desire Of universal happiness, the heart That beats with it in unison, the brain, Whose ever wakeful wisdom toils to change Reason’s rich stores for its eternal weal. _230
‘This commerce of sincerest virtue needs No mediative signs of selfishness, No jealous intercourse of wretched gain, No balancings of prudence, cold and long; In just and equal measure all is weighed, _235 One scale contains the sum of human weal, And one, the good man’s heart. How vainly seek The selfish for that happiness denied To aught but virtue! Blind and hardened, they, Who hope for peace amid the storms of care, _240 Who covet power they know not how to use, And sigh for pleasure they refuse to give,— Madly they frustrate still their own designs; And, where they hope that quiet to enjoy Which virtue pictures, bitterness of soul, _245 Pining regrets, and vain repentances, Disease, disgust, and lassitude, pervade Their valueless and miserable lives.
‘But hoary-headed Selfishness has felt Its death-blow, and is tottering to the grave: _250 A brighter morn awaits the human day, When every transfer of earth’s natural gifts Shall be a commerce of good words and works; When poverty and wealth, the thirst of fame, The fear of infamy, disease and woe, _255 War with its million horrors, and fierce hell Shall live but in the memory of Time, Who, like a penitent libertine, shall start, Look back, and shudder at his younger years.’
6.
All touch, all eye, all ear, The Spirit felt the Fairy’s burning speech. O’er the thin texture of its frame, The varying periods painted changing glows, As on a summer even, _5 When soul-enfolding music floats around, The stainless mirror of the lake Re-images the eastern gloom, Mingling convulsively its purple hues With sunset’s burnished gold. _10
Then thus the Spirit spoke: ‘It is a wild and miserable world! Thorny, and full of care, Which every fiend can make his prey at will. O Fairy! in the lapse of years, _15 Is there no hope in store? Will yon vast suns roll on Interminably, still illuming The night of so many wretched souls, And see no hope for them? _20 Will not the universal Spirit e’er Revivify this withered limb of Heaven?’
The Fairy calmly smiled In comfort, and a kindling gleam of hope Suffused the Spirit’s lineaments. _25 ‘Oh! rest thee tranquil; chase those fearful doubts, Which ne’er could rack an everlasting soul, That sees the chains which bind it to its doom. Yes! crime and misery are in yonder earth, Falsehood, mistake, and lust; _30 But the eternal world Contains at once the evil and the cure. Some eminent in virtue shall start up, Even in perversest time: The truths of their pure lips, that never die, _35 Shall bind the scorpion falsehood with a wreath Of ever-living flame, Until the monster sting itself to death.
‘How sweet a scene will earth become! Of purest spirits a pure dwelling-place, _40 Symphonious with the planetary spheres; When man, with changeless Nature coalescing, Will undertake regeneration’s work, When its ungenial poles no longer point To the red and baleful sun _45 That faintly twinkles there.
‘Spirit! on yonder earth, Falsehood now triumphs; deadly power Has fixed its seal upon the lip of truth! Madness and misery are there! _50 The happiest is most wretched! Yet confide, Until pure health-drops, from the cup of joy, Fall like a dew of balm upon the world. Now, to the scene I show, in silence turn, And read the blood-stained charter of all woe, _55 Which Nature soon, with re-creating hand, Will blot in mercy from the book of earth. How bold the flight of Passion’s wandering wing, How swift the step of Reason’s firmer tread, How calm and sweet the victories of life, _60 How terrorless the triumph of the grave! How powerless were the mightiest monarch’s arm, Vain his loud threat, and impotent his frown! How ludicrous the priest’s dogmatic roar! The weight of his exterminating curse _65 How light! and his affected charity, To suit the pressure of the changing times, What palpable deceit!—but for thy aid, Religion! but for thee, prolific fiend, Who peoplest earth with demons, Hell with men, _70 And Heaven with slaves!
‘Thou taintest all thou look’st upon!—the stars, Which on thy cradle beamed so brightly sweet, Were gods to the distempered playfulness Of thy untutored infancy: the trees, _75 The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea, All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly, Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon Her worshipper. Then thou becam’st, a boy, More daring in thy frenzies: every shape, _80 Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild, Which, from sensation’s relics, fancy culls The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost, The genii of the elements, the powers That give a shape to Nature’s varied works, _85 Had life and place in the corrupt belief Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain; Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene, _90 Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride: Their everlasting and unchanging laws Reproached thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodst Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up The elements of all that thou didst know; _95 The changing seasons, winter’s leafless reign, The budding of the Heaven-breathing trees, The eternal orbs that beautify the night, The sunrise, and the setting of the moon, Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease, _100 And all their causes, to an abstract point Converging, thou didst bend and called it God! The self-sufficing, the omnipotent, The merciful, and the avenging God! Who, prototype of human misrule, sits _105 High in Heaven’s realm, upon a golden throne, Even like an earthly king; and whose dread work, Hell, gapes for ever for the unhappy slaves Of fate, whom He created, in his sport, To triumph in their torments when they fell! _110 Earth heard the name; Earth trembled, as the smoke Of His revenge ascended up to Heaven, Blotting the constellations; and the cries Of millions, butchered in sweet confidence And unsuspecting peace, even when the bonds _115 Of safety were confirmed by wordy oaths Sworn in His dreadful name, rung through the land; Whilst innocent babes writhed on thy stubborn spear, And thou didst laugh to hear the mother’s shriek Of maniac gladness, as the sacred steel _120 Felt cold in her torn entrails!
‘Religion! thou wert then in manhood’s prime: But age crept on: one God would not suffice For senile puerility; thou framedst A tale to suit thy dotage, and to glut _125 Thy misery-thirsting soul, that the mad fiend Thy wickedness had pictured might afford A plea for sating the unnatural thirst For murder, rapine, violence, and crime, That still consumed thy being, even when _130 Thou heardst the step of Fate;—that flames might light Thy funeral scene, and the shrill horrent shrieks Of parents dying on the pile that burned To light their children to thy paths, the roar Of the encircling flames, the exulting cries _135 Of thine apostles, loud commingling there, Might sate thine hungry ear Even on the bed of death!
‘But now contempt is mocking thy gray hairs; Thou art descending to the darksome grave, _140 Unhonoured and unpitied, but by those Whose pride is passing by like thine, and sheds, Like thine, a glare that fades before the sun Of truth, and shines but in the dreadful night That long has lowered above the ruined world. _145
‘Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light, Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffused A Spirit of activity and life, That knows no term, cessation, or decay; That fades not when the lamp of earthly life, _150 Extinguished in the dampness of the grave, Awhile there slumbers, more than when the babe In the dim newness of its being feels The impulses of sublunary things, And all is wonder to unpractised sense: _155 But, active, steadfast, and eternal, still Guides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars, Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves, Strengthens in health, and poisons in disease; And in the storm of change, that ceaselessly _160 Rolls round the eternal universe, and shakes Its undecaying battlement, presides, Apportioning with irresistible law The place each spring of its machine shall fill; So that when waves on waves tumultuous heap _165 Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven Heaven’s lightnings scorch the uprooted ocean-fords, Whilst, to the eye of shipwrecked mariner, Lone sitting on the bare and shuddering rock, All seems unlinked contingency and chance: _170 No atom of this turbulence fulfils A vague and unnecessitated task, Or acts but as it must and ought to act. Even the minutest molecule of light, That in an April sunbeam’s fleeting glow _175 Fulfils its destined, though invisible work, The universal Spirit guides; nor less, When merciless ambition, or mad zeal, Has led two hosts of dupes to battlefield, That, blind, they there may dig each other’s graves, _180 And call the sad work glory, does it rule All passions: not a thought, a will, an act, No working of the tyrant’s moody mind, Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast Their servitude, to hide the shame they feel, _185 Nor the events enchaining every will, That from the depths of unrecorded time Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass Unrecognized, or unforeseen by thee, Soul of the Universe! eternal spring _190 Of life and death, of happiness and woe, Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene That floats before our eyes in wavering light, Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison, Whose chains and massy walls _195 We feel, but cannot see.
‘Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power, Necessity! thou mother of the world! Unlike the God of human error, thou Requir’st no prayers or praises; the caprice _200 Of man’s weak will belongs no more to thee Than do the changeful passions of his breast To thy unvarying harmony: the slave, Whose horrible lusts spread misery o’er the world, And the good man, who lifts, with virtuous pride, _205 His being, in the sight of happiness, That springs from his own works; the poison-tree Beneath whose shade all life is withered up, And the fair oak, whose leafy dome affords A temple where the vows of happy love _210 Are registered, are equal in thy sight: No love, no hate thou cherishest; revenge And favouritism, and worst desire of fame Thou know’st not: all that the wide world contains Are but thy passive instruments, and thou _215 Regard’st them all with an impartial eye, Whose joy or pain thy nature cannot feel, Because thou hast not human sense, Because thou art not human mind.
‘Yes! when the sweeping storm of time _220 Has sung its death-dirge o’er the ruined fanes And broken altars of the almighty Fiend Whose name usurps thy honours, and the blood Through centuries clotted there, has floated down The tainted flood of ages, shalt thou live _225 Unchangeable! A shrine is raised to thee, Which, nor the tempest-breath of time, Nor the interminable flood, Over earth’s slight pageant rolling, Availeth to destroy,—. _230 The sensitive extension of the world. That wondrous and eternal fane, Where pain and pleasure, good and evil join, To do the will of strong necessity, And life, in multitudinous shapes, _235 Still pressing forward where no term can be, Like hungry and unresting flame Curls round the eternal columns of its strength.’
7.
SPIRIT: ‘I was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there: The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, _5 Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth: The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob _10 Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. “Weep not, child!” cried my mother, “for that man Has said, There is no God.”’
FAIRY: ‘There is no God! Nature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed: Let heaven and earth, let man’s revolving race, _15 His ceaseless generations tell their tale; Let every part depending on the chain That links it to the whole, point to the hand That grasps its term! let every seed that falls In silent eloquence unfold its store _20 Of argument; infinity within, Infinity without, belie creation; The exterminable spirit it contains Is nature’s only God; but human pride Is skilful to invent most serious names _25 To hide its ignorance. The name of God Has fenced about all crime with holiness, Himself the creature of His worshippers, Whose names and attributes and passions change, Seeva, Buddh, Foh, Jehovah, God, or Lord, _30 Even with the human dupes who build His shrines, Still serving o’er the war-polluted world For desolation’s watchword; whether hosts Stain His death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on Triumphantly they roll, whilst Brahmins raise _35 A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans; Or countless partners of His power divide His tyranny to weakness; or the smoke Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness, Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, _40 Horribly massacred, ascend to Heaven In honour of His name; or, last and worst, Earth groans beneath religion’s iron age, And priests dare babble of a God of peace, Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, _45 Murdering the while, uprooting every germ Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, Making the earth a slaughter-house!
‘O Spirit! through the sense By which thy inner nature was apprised _50 Of outward shows, vague dreams have rolled, And varied reminiscences have waked Tablets that never fade; All things have been imprinted there, The stars, the sea, the earth, the sky, _55 Even the unshapeliest lineaments Of wild and fleeting visions Have left a record there To testify of earth.
‘These are my empire, for to me is given _60 The wonders of the human world to keep, And Fancy’s thin creations to endow With manner, being, and reality; Therefore a wondrous phantom, from the dreams Of human error’s dense and purblind faith, _65 I will evoke, to meet thy questioning. Ahasuerus, rise!’
A strange and woe-worn wight Arose beside the battlement, And stood unmoving there. _70 His inessential figure cast no shade Upon the golden floor; His port and mien bore mark of many years, And chronicles of untold ancientness Were legible within his beamless eye: _75 Yet his cheek bore the mark of youth; Freshness and vigour knit his manly frame; The wisdom of old age was mingled there With youth’s primaeval dauntlessness; And inexpressible woe, _80 Chastened by fearless resignation, gave An awful grace to his all-speaking brow.
SPIRIT: ‘Is there a God?’
AHASUERUS: ‘Is there a God!—ay, an almighty God, And vengeful as almighty! Once His voice _85 Was heard on earth: earth shuddered at the sound; The fiery-visaged firmament expressed Abhorrence, and the grave of Nature yawned To swallow all the dauntless and the good That dared to hurl defiance at His throne, _90 Girt as it was with power. None but slaves Survived,—cold-blooded slaves, who did the work Of tyrannous omnipotence; whose souls No honest indignation ever urged To elevated daring, to one deed _95 Which gross and sensual self did not pollute. These slaves built temples for the omnipotent Fiend, Gorgeous and vast: the costly altars smoked With human blood, and hideous paeans rung Through all the long-drawn aisles. A murderer heard _100 His voice in Egypt, one whose gifts and arts Had raised him to his eminence in power, Accomplice of omnipotence in crime, And confidant of the all-knowing one. These were Jehovah’s words:— _105
‘From an eternity of idleness I, God, awoke; in seven days’ toil made earth From nothing; rested, and created man: I placed him in a Paradise, and there Planted the tree of evil, so that he _110 Might eat and perish, and My soul procure Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn, Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth, All misery to My fame. The race of men Chosen to My honour, with impunity _115 May sate the lusts I planted in their heart. Here I command thee hence to lead them on, Until, with hardened feet, their conquering troops Wade on the promised soil through woman’s blood, And make My name be dreaded through the land. _120 Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe Shall be the doom of their eternal souls, With every soul on this ungrateful earth, Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong,—even all Shall perish, to fulfil the blind revenge _125 (Which you, to men, call justice) of their God.’
The murderer’s brow Quivered with horror. ‘God omnipotent, Is there no mercy? must our punishment Be endless? will long ages roll away, _130 And see no term? Oh! wherefore hast Thou made In mockery and wrath this evil earth? Mercy becomes the powerful—be but just: O God! repent and save.’
‘One way remains: I will beget a Son, and He shall bear _135 The sins of all the world; He shall arise In an unnoticed corner of the earth, And there shall die upon a cross, and purge The universal crime; so that the few On whom My grace descends, those who are marked _140 As vessels to the honour of their God, May credit this strange sacrifice, and save Their souls alive: millions shall live and die, Who ne’er shall call upon their Saviour’s name, But, unredeemed, go to the gaping grave. _145 Thousands shall deem it an old woman’s tale, Such as the nurses frighten babes withal: These in a gulf of anguish and of flame Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, _150 Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honour, and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason’s earthly ray? _155 Many are called, but few will I elect. Do thou My bidding, Moses!’ Even the murderer’s cheek Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips Scarce faintly uttered—‘O almighty One, I tremble and obey!’ _160
‘O Spirit! centuries have set their seal On this heart of many wounds, and loaded brain, Since the Incarnate came: humbly He came, Veiling His horrible Godhead in the shape Of man, scorned by the world, His name unheard, _165 Save by the rabble of His native town, Even as a parish demagogue. He led The crowd; He taught them justice, truth, and peace, In semblance; but He lit within their souls The quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword _170 He brought on earth to satiate with the blood Of truth and freedom His malignant soul. At length His mortal frame was led to death. I stood beside Him: on the torturing cross No pain assailed His unterrestrial sense; _175 And yet He groaned. Indignantly I summed The massacres and miseries which His name Had sanctioned in my country, and I cried, “Go! Go!” in mockery. A smile of godlike malice reillumed _180 His fading lineaments.—“I go,” He cried, “But thou shalt wander o’er the unquiet earth Eternally.”—The dampness of the grave Bathed my imperishable front. I fell, And long lay tranced upon the charmed soil. _185 When I awoke Hell burned within my brain, Which staggered on its seat; for all around The mouldering relics of my kindred lay, Even as the Almighty’s ire arrested them, And in their various attitudes of death _190 My murdered children’s mute and eyeless skulls Glared ghastily upon me. But my soul, From sight and sense of the polluting woe Of tyranny, had long learned to prefer Hell’s freedom to the servitude of Heaven. _195 Therefore I rose, and dauntlessly began My lonely and unending pilgrimage, Resolved to wage unweariable war With my almighty Tyrant, and to hurl Defiance at His impotence to harm _200 Beyond the curse I bore. The very hand That barred my passage to the peaceful grave Has crushed the earth to misery, and given Its empire to the chosen of His slaves. These have I seen, even from the earliest dawn _205 Of weak, unstable and precarious power, Then preaching peace, as now they practise war; So, when they turned but from the massacre Of unoffending infidels, to quench Their thirst for ruin in the very blood _210 That flowed in their own veins, and pitiless zeal Froze every human feeling, as the wife Sheathed in her husband’s heart the sacred steel, Even whilst its hopes were dreaming of her love; And friends to friends, brothers to brothers stood _215 Opposed in bloodiest battle-field, and war, Scarce satiable by fate’s last death-draught, waged, Drunk from the winepress of the Almighty’s wrath; Whilst the red cross, in mockery of peace, Pointed to victory! When the fray was done, _220 No remnant of the exterminated faith Survived to tell its ruin, but the flesh, With putrid smoke poisoning the atmosphere, That rotted on the half-extinguished pile.
‘Yes! I have seen God’s worshippers unsheathe _225 The sword of His revenge, when grace descended, Confirming all unnatural impulses, To sanctify their desolating deeds; And frantic priests waved the ill-omened cross O’er the unhappy earth: then shone the sun _230 On showers of gore from the upflashing steel Of safe assassination, and all crime Made stingless by the Spirits of the Lord, And blood-red rainbows canopied the land. ‘Spirit, no year of my eventful being _235 Has passed unstained by crime and misery, Which flows from God’s own faith. I’ve marked His slaves With tongues whose lies are venomous, beguile The insensate mob, and, whilst one hand was red With murder, feign to stretch the other out _240 For brotherhood and peace; and that they now Babble of love and mercy, whilst their deeds Are marked with all the narrowness and crime That Freedom’s young arm dare not yet chastise, Reason may claim our gratitude, who now _245 Establishing the imperishable throne Of truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain The unprevailing malice of my Foe, Whose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave, Adds impotent eternities to pain, _250 Whilst keenest disappointment racks His breast To see the smiles of peace around them play, To frustrate or to sanctify their doom.
‘Thus have I stood,—through a wild waste of years Struggling with whirlwinds of mad agony, _255 Yet peaceful, and serene, and self-enshrined, Mocking my powerless Tyrant’s horrible curse With stubborn and unalterable will, Even as a giant oak, which Heaven’s fierce flame Had scathed in the wilderness, to stand _260 A monument of fadeless ruin there; Yet peacefully and movelessly it braves The midnight conflict of the wintry storm, As in the sunlight’s calm it spreads Its worn and withered arms on high _265 To meet the quiet of a summer’s noon.’
The Fairy waved her wand: Ahasuerus fled Fast as the shapes of mingled shade and mist, That lurk in the glens of a twilight grove, _270 Flee from the morning beam: The matter of which dreams are made Not more endowed with actual life Than this phantasmal portraiture Of wandering human thought. _275
NOTE: _180 reillumined edition 1813.
8.
THE FAIRY: ‘The Present and the Past thou hast beheld: It was a desolate sight. Now, Spirit, learn The secrets of the Future.—Time! Unfold the brooding pinion of thy gloom, Render thou up thy half-devoured babes, _5 And from the cradles of eternity, Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep By the deep murmuring stream of passing things, Tear thou that gloomy shroud.—Spirit, behold Thy glorious destiny!’ _10
Joy to the Spirit came. Through the wide rent in Time’s eternal veil, Hope was seen beaming through the mists of fear: Earth was no longer Hell; Love, freedom, health, had given _15 Their ripeness to the manhood of its prime, And all its pulses beat Symphonious to the planetary spheres: Then dulcet music swelled Concordant with the life-strings of the soul; _20 It throbbed in sweet and languid beatings there, Catching new life from transitory death,— Like the vague sighings of a wind at even, That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea And dies on the creation of its breath, _25 And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits: Was the pure stream of feeling That sprung from these sweet notes, And o’er the Spirit’s human sympathies With mild and gentle motion calmly flowed. _30
Joy to the Spirit came,— Such joy as when a lover sees The chosen of his soul in happiness, And witnesses her peace Whose woe to him were bitterer than death, _35 Sees her unfaded cheek Glow mantling in first luxury of health, Thrills with her lovely eyes, Which like two stars amid the heaving main Sparkle through liquid bliss. _40
Then in her triumph spoke the Fairy Queen: ‘I will not call the ghost of ages gone To unfold the frightful secrets of its lore; The present now is past, And those events that desolate the earth _45 Have faded from the memory of Time, Who dares not give reality to that Whose being I annul. To me is given The wonders of the human world to keep, Space, matter, time, and mind. Futurity _50 Exposes now its treasure; let the sight Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope. O human Spirit! spur thee to the goal Where virtue fixes universal peace, And midst the ebb and flow of human things, _55 Show somewhat stable, somewhat certain still, A lighthouse o’er the wild of dreary waves.
‘The habitable earth is full of bliss; Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled By everlasting snowstorms round the poles, _60 Where matter dared not vegetate or live, But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed; And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles Ruffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls _65 Its broad, bright surges to the sloping sand, Whose roar is wakened into echoings sweet To murmur through the Heaven-breathing groves And melodize with man’s blest nature there.
‘Those deserts of immeasurable sand, _70 Whose age-collected fervours scarce allowed A bird to live, a blade of grass to spring, Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard’s love Broke on the sultry silentness alone, Now teem with countless rills and shady woods, _75 Cornfields and pastures and white cottages; And where the startled wilderness beheld A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood, A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs, _80 Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang, Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn, Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles To see a babe before his mother’s door, Sharing his morning’s meal _85 With the green and golden basilisk That comes to lick his feet.
‘Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail Has seen above the illimitable plain, Morning on night, and night on morning rise, _90 Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea, Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves So long have mingled with the gusty wind In melancholy loneliness, and swept _95 The desert of those ocean solitudes, But vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek, The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm, Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds Of kindliest human impulses respond. _100 Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem, With lightsome clouds and shining seas between, And fertile valleys, resonant with bliss, Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave, Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore, _105 To meet the kisses of the flow’rets there.
‘All things are recreated, and the flame Of consentaneous love inspires all life: The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck To myriads, who still grow beneath her care, _110 Rewarding her with their pure perfectness: The balmy breathings of the wind inhale Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad: Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere, Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream: _115 No storms deform the beaming brow of Heaven, Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride The foliage of the ever-verdant trees; But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair, And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace, _120 Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring, Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit Reflects its tint, and blushes into love.
‘The lion now forgets to thirst for blood: There might you see him sporting in the sun _125 Beside the dreadless kid; his claws are sheathed, His teeth are harmless, custom’s force has made His nature as the nature of a lamb. Like passion’s fruit, the nightshade’s tempting bane Poisons no more the pleasure it bestows: _130 All bitterness is past; the cup of joy Unmingled mantles to the goblet’s brim, And courts the thirsty lips it fled before.
‘But chief, ambiguous Man, he that can know More misery, and dream more joy than all; _135 Whose keen sensations thrill within his breast To mingle with a loftier instinct there, Lending their power to pleasure and to pain, Yet raising, sharpening, and refining each; Who stands amid the ever-varying world, _140 The burthen or the glory of the earth; He chief perceives the change, his being notes The gradual renovation, and defines Each movement of its progress on his mind.
‘Man, where the gloom of the long polar night _145 Lowers o’er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil, Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost Basks in the moonlight’s ineffectual glow, Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night; His chilled and narrow energies, his heart, _150 Insensible to courage, truth, or love, His stunted stature and imbecile frame, Marked him for some abortion of the earth, Fit compeer of the bears that roamed around, Whose habits and enjoyments were his own: _155 His life a feverish dream of stagnant woe, Whose meagre wants, but scantily fulfilled, Apprised him ever of the joyless length Which his short being’s wretchedness had reached; His death a pang which famine, cold and toil _160 Long on the mind, whilst yet the vital spark Clung to the body stubbornly, had brought: All was inflicted here that Earth’s revenge Could wreak on the infringers of her law; One curse alone was spared—the name of God. _165
‘Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day With a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame, Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere Scattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed Unnatural vegetation, where the land _170 Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease, Was Man a nobler being; slavery Had crushed him to his country’s bloodstained dust; Or he was bartered for the fame of power, Which all internal impulses destroying, _175 Makes human will an article of trade; Or he was changed with Christians for their gold, And dragged to distant isles, where to the sound Of the flesh-mangling scourge, he does the work Of all-polluting luxury and wealth, _180 Which doubly visits on the tyrants’ heads The long-protracted fulness of their woe; Or he was led to legal butchery, To turn to worms beneath that burning sun, Where kings first leagued against the rights of men, _185 And priests first traded with the name of God.
‘Even where the milder zone afforded Man A seeming shelter, yet contagion there, Blighting his being with unnumbered ills, Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth till late _190 Availed to arrest its progress, or create That peace which first in bloodless victory waved Her snowy standard o’er this favoured clime: There man was long the train-bearer of slaves, The mimic of surrounding misery, _195 The jackal of ambition’s lion-rage, The bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal. ‘Here now the human being stands adorning This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind; Blessed from his birth with all bland impulses, _200 Which gently in his noble bosom wake All kindly passions and all pure desires. Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise _205 In time-destroying infiniteness, gift With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks The unprevailing hoariness of age, And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene Swift as an unremembered vision, stands _210 Immortal upon earth: no longer now He slays the lamb that looks him in the face, And horribly devours his mangled flesh, Which, still avenging Nature’s broken law, Kindled all putrid humours in his frame, _215 All evil passions, and all vain belief, Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind, The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime. No longer now the winged habitants, That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,— _220 Flee from the form of man; but gather round, And prune their sunny feathers on the hands Which little children stretch in friendly sport Towards these dreadless partners of their play. All things are void of terror: Man has lost _225 His terrible prerogative, and stands An equal amidst equals: happiness And science dawn though late upon the earth; Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame; Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here, _230 Reason and passion cease to combat there; Whilst each unfettered o’er the earth extend Their all-subduing energies, and wield The sceptre of a vast dominion there; Whilst every shape and mode of matter lends _235 Its force to the omnipotence of mind, Which from its dark mine drags the gem of truth To decorate its Paradise of peace.’
NOTES: _204 exhaustless store edition 1813. _205 Draws edition 1813. See Editor’s Note.
9.
‘O happy Earth! reality of Heaven! To which those restless souls that ceaselessly Throng through the human universe, aspire; Thou consummation of all mortal hope! Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will! _5 Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time, Verge to one point and blend for ever there: Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place! Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come: _10 O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!
‘Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams, And dim forebodings of thy loveliness Haunting the human heart, have there entwined Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss _15 Where friends and lovers meet to part no more. Thou art the end of all desire and will, The product of all action; and the souls That by the paths of an aspiring change Have reached thy haven of perpetual peace, _20 There rest from the eternity of toil That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.
‘Even Time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear; That hoary giant, who, in lonely pride, So long had ruled the world, that nations fell _25 Beneath his silent footstep. Pyramids, That for millenniums had withstood the tide Of human things, his storm-breath drove in sand Across that desert where their stones survived The name of him whose pride had heaped them there. _30 Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp, Was but the mushroom of a summer day, That his light-winged footstep pressed to dust: Time was the king of earth: all things gave way Before him, but the fixed and virtuous will, _35 The sacred sympathies of soul and sense, That mocked his fury and prepared his fall.
‘Yet slow and gradual dawned the morn of love; Long lay the clouds of darkness o’er the scene, Till from its native Heaven they rolled away: _40 First, Crime triumphant o’er all hope careered Unblushing, undisguising, bold and strong; Whilst Falsehood, tricked in Virtue’s attributes, Long sanctified all deeds of vice and woe, Till done by her own venomous sting to death, _45 She left the moral world without a law, No longer fettering Passion’s fearless wing,— Nor searing Reason with the brand of God. Then steadily the happy ferment worked; Reason was free; and wild though Passion went _50 Through tangled glens and wood-embosomed meads, Gathering a garland of the strangest flowers, Yet like the bee returning to her queen, She bound the sweetest on her sister’s brow, Who meek and sober kissed the sportive child, _55 No longer trembling at the broken rod.
‘Mild was the slow necessity of death: The tranquil spirit failed beneath its grasp, Without a groan, almost without a fear, Calm as a voyager to some distant land, _60 And full of wonder, full of hope as he. The deadly germs of languor and disease Died in the human frame, and Purity Blessed with all gifts her earthly worshippers. How vigorous then the athletic form of age! _65 How clear its open and unwrinkled brow! Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care, Had stamped the seal of gray deformity On all the mingling lineaments of time. How lovely the intrepid front of youth! _70 Which meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace;— Courage of soul, that dreaded not a name, And elevated will, that journeyed on Through life’s phantasmal scene in fearlessness, With virtue, love, and pleasure, hand in hand. _75
‘Then, that sweet bondage which is Freedom’s self, And rivets with sensation’s softest tie The kindred sympathies of human souls, Needed no fetters of tyrannic law: Those delicate and timid impulses _80 In Nature’s primal modesty arose, And with undoubted confidence disclosed The growing longings of its dawning love, Unchecked by dull and selfish chastity, That virtue of the cheaply virtuous, _85 Who pride themselves in senselessness and frost. No longer prostitution’s venomed bane Poisoned the springs of happiness and life; Woman and man, in confidence and love, Equal and free and pure together trod _90 The mountain-paths of virtue, which no more Were stained with blood from many a pilgrim’s feet.
‘Then, where, through distant ages, long in pride The palace of the monarch-slave had mocked Famine’s faint groan, and Penury’s silent tear, _95 A heap of crumbling ruins stood, and threw Year after year their stones upon the field, Wakening a lonely echo; and the leaves Of the old thorn, that on the topmost tower Usurped the royal ensign’s grandeur, shook _100 In the stern storm that swayed the topmost tower And whispered strange tales in the Whirlwind’s ear. ‘Low through the lone cathedral’s roofless aisles The melancholy winds a death-dirge sung: It were a sight of awfulness to see _105 The works of faith and slavery, so vast, So sumptuous, yet so perishing withal! Even as the corpse that rests beneath its wall. A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death To-day, the breathing marble glows above _110 To decorate its memory, and tongues Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms In silence and in darkness seize their prey.
‘Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts, Fearless and free the ruddy children played, _115 Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows With the green ivy and the red wallflower, That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom; The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron, There rusted amid heaps of broken stone _120 That mingled slowly with their native earth: There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean Captivity With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure smiles of infant playfulness: _125 No more the shuddering voice of hoarse Despair Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds And merriment were resonant around.
‘These ruins soon left not a wreck behind: _130 Their elements, wide scattered o’er the globe, To happier shapes were moulded, and became Ministrant to all blissful impulses: Thus human things were perfected, and earth, Even as a child beneath its mother’s love, _135 Was strengthened in all excellence, and grew Fairer and nobler with each passing year.
‘Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done: _140 Thy lore is learned. Earth’s wonders are thine own, With all the fear and all the hope they bring. My spells are passed: the present now recurs. Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains Yet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand. _145
‘Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course, Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue The gradual paths of an aspiring change: For birth and life and death, and that strange state Before the naked soul has found its home, _150 All tend to perfect happiness, and urge The restless wheels of being on their way, Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life, Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal: For birth but wakes the spirit to the sense _155 Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape New modes of passion to its frame may lend; Life is its state of action, and the store Of all events is aggregated there That variegate the eternal universe; _160 Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies And happy regions of eternal hope. Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, _165 Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet Spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth, To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower, That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens, Lighting the greenwood with its sunny smile. _170
‘Fear not then, Spirit, Death’s disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch burns; ’Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. _175 Death is no foe to Virtue: earth has seen Love’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with Freedom’s fadeless laurels there, And presaging the truth of visioned bliss. Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene _180 Of linked and gradual being has confirmed? Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still, When, to the moonlight walk by Henry led, Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death? And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, _185 Listening supinely to a bigot’s creed, Or tamely crouching to the tyrant’s rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? Never: but bravely bearing on, thy will Is destined an eternal war to wage _190 With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot The germs of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, _195 Watching its wanderings as a friend’s disease: Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world. Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, _200 Free from heart-withering custom’s cold control, Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued. Earth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee, And therefore art thou worthy of the boon Which thou hast now received: Virtue shall keep _205 Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch _210 Light, life and rapture from thy smile.’
The Fairy waves her wand of charm. Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car, That rolled beside the battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. _215 Again the enchanted steeds were yoked, Again the burning wheels inflame The steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way. Fast and far the chariot flew: The vast and fiery globes that rolled _220 Around the Fairy’s palace-gate Lessened by slow degrees and soon appeared Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs That there attendant on the solar power With borrowed light pursued their narrower way. _225
Earth floated then below: The chariot paused a moment there; The Spirit then descended: The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil, Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, _230 Unfurled their pinions to the winds of Heaven.
The Body and the Soul united then, A gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame: Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: _235 She looked around in wonder and beheld Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright beaming stars That through the casement shone. _240
***
NOTES ON QUEEN MAB.
SHELLEY’S NOTES.
1. 242, 243:—
The sun’s unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave.
Beyond our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless orb of fire in the midst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is owing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their reflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations propagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles repelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly exceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations on the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites have demonstrated that light takes up no more than 8 minutes 7 seconds in passing from the sun to the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles.—Some idea may be gained of the immense distance of the fixed stars when it is computed that many years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth.
1. 252, 253:—
Whilst round the chariot’s way Innumerable systems rolled.
The plurality of worlds,—the indefinite immensity of the universe, is a most awful subject of contemplation. He who rightly feels its mystery and grandeur is in no danger of seduction from the falsehoods of religious systems, or of deifying the principle of the universe. It is impossible to believe that the Spirit that pervades this infinite machine begat a son upon the body of a Jewish woman; or is angered at the consequences of that necessity, which is a synonym of itself. All that miserable tale of the Devil, and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the childish mummeries of the God of the Jews, is irreconcilable with the knowledge of the stars. The works of His fingers have borne witness against Him.
The nearest of the fixed stars is inconceivably distant from the earth, and they are probably proportionably distant from each other. By a calculation of the velocity of light, Sirius is supposed to be at least 54,224,000,000,000 miles from the earth. (See Nicholson’s “Encyclopedia”, article Light.) That which appears only like a thin and silvery cloud streaking the heaven is in effect composed of innumerable clusters of suns, each shining with its own light, and illuminating numbers of planets that revolve around them. Millions and millions of suns are ranged around us, all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity.
4. 178, 179:—
These are the hired bravos who defend The tyrant’s throne.
To employ murder as a means of justice is an idea which a man of an enlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in rank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the purpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them all the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their blood; to wander over the field of desolation, and count the number of the dying and the dead,—are employments which in thesis we may maintain to be necessary, but which no good man will contemplate with gratulation and delight. A battle we suppose is won:—thus truth is established, thus the cause of justice is confirmed! It surely requires no common sagacity to discern the connexion between this immense heap of calamities and the assertion of truth or the maintenance of justice.
‘Kings, and ministers of state, the real authors of the calamity, sit unmolested in their cabinet, while those against whom the fury of the storm is directed are, for the most part, persons who have been trepanned into the service, or who are dragged unwillingly from their peaceful homes into the field of battle. A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men’s iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural being.
To these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to add a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its first constituent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.’—Godwin’s “Enquirer”, Essay 5.
I will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my abhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again may be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is perhaps the only one that ever will occur of rescuing it from oblivion.
FALSEHOOD AND VICE.
A DIALOGUE.
Whilst monarchs laughed upon their thrones To hear a famished nation’s groans, And hugged the wealth wrung from the woe That makes its eyes and veins o’erflow,— Those thrones, high built upon the heaps Of bones where frenzied Famine sleeps, Where Slavery wields her scourge of iron, Red with mankind’s unheeded gore, And War’s mad fiends the scene environ, Mingling with shrieks a drunken roar, There Vice and Falsehood took their stand, High raised above the unhappy land.
FALSEHOOD: Brother! arise from the dainty fare, Which thousands have toiled and bled to bestow; A finer feast for thy hungry ear Is the news that I bring of human woe.
VICE: And, secret one, what hast thou done, To compare, in thy tumid pride, with me? I, whose career, through the blasted year, Has been tracked by despair and agony.
FALSEHOOD: What have I done!—I have torn the robe From baby Truth’s unsheltered form, And round the desolated globe Borne safely the bewildering charm: My tyrant-slaves to a dungeon-floor Have bound the fearless innocent, And streams of fertilizing gore Flow from her bosom’s hideous rent, Which this unfailing dagger gave... I dread that blood!—no more—this day Is ours, though her eternal ray Must shine upon our grave. Yet know, proud Vice, had I not given To thee the robe I stole from Heaven, Thy shape of ugliness and fear Had never gained admission here.
VICE: And know, that had I disdained to toil, But sate in my loathsome cave the while, And ne’er to these hateful sons of Heaven, GOLD, MONARCHY, and MURDER, given; Hadst thou with all thine art essayed One of thy games then to have played, With all thine overweening boast, Falsehood! I tell thee thou hadst lost!— Yet wherefore this dispute?—we tend, Fraternal, to one common end; In this cold grave beneath my feet, Will our hopes, our fears, and our labours, meet.
FALSEHOOD: I brought my daughter, RELIGION, on earth: She smothered Reason’s babes in their birth; But dreaded their mother’s eye severe,— So the crocodile slunk off slily in fear, And loosed her bloodhounds from the den.... They started from dreams of slaughtered men, And, by the light of her poison eye, Did her work o’er the wide earth frightfully: The dreadful stench of her torches’ flare, Fed with human fat, polluted the air: The curses, the shrieks, the ceaseless cries Of the many-mingling miseries, As on she trod, ascended high And trumpeted my victory!— Brother, tell what thou hast done.
VICE: I have extinguished the noonday sun, In the carnage-smoke of battles won: Famine, Murder, Hell and Power Were glutted in that glorious hour Which searchless fate had stamped for me With the seal of her security... For the bloated wretch on yonder throne Commanded the bloody fray to rise. Like me he joyed at the stifled moan Wrung from a nation’s miseries; While the snakes, whose slime even him DEFILED, In ecstasies of malice smiled: They thought ’twas theirs,—but mine the deed! Theirs is the toil, but mine the meed— Ten thousand victims madly bleed. They dream that tyrants goad them there With poisonous war to taint the air: These tyrants, on their beds of thorn, Swell with the thoughts of murderous fame, And with their gains to lift my name Restless they plan from night to morn: I—I do all; without my aid Thy daughter, that relentless maid, Could never o’er a death-bed urge The fury of her venomed scourge.
FALSEHOOD: Brother, well:—the world is ours; And whether thou or I have won, The pestilence expectant lowers On all beneath yon blasted sun. Our joys, our toils, our honours meet In the milk-white and wormy winding-sheet: A short-lived hope, unceasing care, Some heartless scraps of godly prayer, A moody curse, and a frenzied sleep Ere gapes the grave’s unclosing deep, A tyrant’s dream, a coward’s start, The ice that clings to a priestly heart, A judge’s frown, a courtier’s smile, Make the great whole for which we toil; And, brother, whether thou or I Have done the work of misery, It little boots: thy toil and pain, Without my aid, were more than vain; And but for thee I ne’er had sate The guardian of Heaven’s palace gate.
5. 1, 2:—
Thus do the generations of the earth Go to the grave, and issue from the womb.
‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.’—Ecclesiastes,