Volume 2 / Part 3 — 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.