Percy Bysshe Shelley[ / 7 9 2 - / S 2 2 ]495 Hymn of Pan
¶FROM the forests and highlandsWe come, we come;From the river-girt islands,Where loud waves are dumb,Listening to my sweet pipings.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,Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,Listening to my sweet pipings.
¶Liquid Peneus was flowing,And all dark Tempe layIn Pelion's shadow, outgrowingThe light of the dying day,[824]Speeded by my sweet pipings.The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,To the edge of the moist river-lawns,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.
¶I sang of the dancing stars,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 MaenalusI pursued a maiden, and clasp'd 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—At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
Hellas
¶THE world's great age begins anew,The golden years return,The earth doth like a snake renewHer winter weeds outworn:Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleamLike wrecks of a dissolving dream.
¶A brighter Hellas rears its mountainsFrom waves serener far;A new Peneus rolls his fountainsAgainst the morning star;Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleepYoung Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
¶A loftier Argo cleaves the main,Fraught with a later prize;Another Orpheus sings again,[825]And loves, and weeps, and dies;A new Ulysses leaves once moreCalypso for his native shore.
¶O write no more the tale of Troy,If earth Death's scroll must be—Nor mix with Laian rage the joyWhich dawns upon the free,Although a subtler Sphinx renewRiddles of death Thebes never knew.
¶Another Athens shall arise,And to remoter timeBequeath, like sunset to the skies,The splendour of its prime;And leave, if naught so bright may live,All earth can take or Heaven can give.
¶Saturn and Love their long reposeShall burst, more bright and goodThan all who fell, than One who rose,Than many unsubdued:Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,But votive tears and symbol flowers.
¶O cease! must hate and death return?Cease! must men kill and die?Cease! drain not to its dregs the urnOf bitter prophecy!The world is weary of the past—O might it die or rest at last!
Invocation
¶RARELY, rarely comest thou,Spirit of Delight!Wherefore hast thou left me nowMany a day and night?Many a weary night and day'Tis since thou art fled away.[826]How shall ever one like meWin thee back again?With the joyous and the freeThou wilt scoff at pain.Spirit false! thou hast forgotAll but those who need thee not.
¶As a lizard with the shadeOf a trembling leaf,Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;Even the sighs of griefReproach thee, that thou art not near,And reproach thou wilt not hear.
¶Let me set my mournful dittyTo a merry measure;—Thou wilt never come for pity,Thou wilt come for pleasure;—Pity thou wilt cut awayThose cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
¶I love all that thou lovest,Spirit of Delight!The fresh Earth in new leaves drestAnd the starry night;Autumn evening, and the mornWhen the golden mists are born.
¶I love snow and all the formsOf the radiant frost;I love waves, and winds, and storms,Everything almostWhich is Nature's, and may beUntainted by man's misery.
¶I love tranquil solitude,And such societyAs is quiet, wise, and good;Between thee and meWhat diff'rence ? but thou dost possessThe things I seek, nor love them less.[827]I love Love—though he has wings,And like light can flee,But above all other things,Spirit, I love thee—Thou art love and life! O come!Make once more my heart thy home!
Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples
¶THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,The waves are dancing fast and bright,Blue isles and snowy mountains wearThe purple noon's transparent light:The breath of the moist earth is lightAround 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.
¶I see the Deep's untrampled floorWith green and purple sea-weeds strown;I see the waves upon the shoreLike light dissolved in star-showers thrown:I sit upon the sands alone;The lightning of the noon-tide oceanIs flashing round me, and a toneArises from its measured motion—How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
¶Alas! I have nor hope nor health,Nor peace within nor calm around,Nor that Content, surpassing wealth,The sage in meditation found,And walk'd with inward glory crown'd—Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;Others I see whom these surround—Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
¶Yet now despair itself is mildEven as the winds and waters are;[828]I could lie down like a tired child,And weep away the life of careWhich I have borne, and yet must bear,Till death like sleep might steal on me,And I might feel in the warm airMy cheek grow cold, and hear the seaBreathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
I Fear Thy Kisses
¶I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden;Thou needest not fear mine;My spirit is too deeply ladenEver to burthen thine.
¶I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;Thou needest not fear mine;Innocent is the heart's devotionWith which I worship thine.
Lines to an Indian Air
¶I ARISE from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing lowAnd the stars are shining bright:I arise from dreams of thee,And a spirit in my feetHath led me—who knows how?To thy chamber-window, Sweet!
¶The wandering airs they faintOn the dark, the silent stream—The champak odours failLike sweet thoughts in a dream;The nightingale's complaintIt dies upon her heart,As I must die on thineO beloved as thou art!
¶0 lift me from the grass!I die, I faint, I fail![829]Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale.My cheek is cold and white, alas!My heart beats loud and fast;O! press it close to thine againWhere it will break at last.
To A SKYLARK
¶HAIL to thee, blithe Spirit!Bird thou never wert,That from heaven, or near it,Pourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art
¶Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springestLike a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
¶In the golden lightningOf the sunken sunO'er which clouds are brightening,Thou dost float and run,Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
¶The pale purple evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of heavenIn the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:
¶Keen as are the arrowsOf that silver sphere,Whose intense lamp narrows 'In the white dawn clearUntil we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
¶All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,[830]As, when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.
¶What thou art we know not;What is most like thee?From rainbow clouds there flow notDrops so bright to seeAs from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
¶Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
¶Like a high-born maidenIn a palace tower,Soothing her love-ladenSoul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
¶Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aerial hueAmong the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
¶Like a rose embower'dIn its own green leaves,By warm winds deflower'd,Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
¶Sound of vernal showersOn the twinkling grass,Rain-awaken'd flowers,All that ever wasJoyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.[831]Teach us, sprite or bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
¶Chorus hymenealOr triumphal chauntMatch'd with thine, would be allBut an empty vaunt—A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
¶What objects are the fountainsOf 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?
¶With thy clear keen joyanceLanguor cannot be:Shadow of annoyanceNever came near thee:Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
¶Waking or asleepThou of death must deemThings more true and deepThan we mortals dream,Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
¶We look before and after,And pine for what is not:Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
¶Yet if we could scornHate, and pride, and fear;If we were things bornNot to shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.[832]Better than all measuresOf delightful sound,Better than all treasuresThat in books are found,Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground 1
¶Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know,Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flowThe world should listen then, as I am listening now!
502 Love's Philosophy
¶THE fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for everWith a sweet emotion;Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one another's being mingle—Why not I with thine?
¶See the mountains kiss high heavenAnd the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdain'd its brother:And the sunlight clasps the earth,And the moonbeams kiss the sea—What are all these kissings worth,If thou kiss not me?
503 To THE NIGHT
¶SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,Spirit of Night!Out of the misty eastern caveWhere, all the long and lone daylight,Thou wovest dreams of joy and fearWhich make thee terrible and dear,—Swift be thy flight![833]Wrap thy form in a mantle grayStar-inwrought!Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,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!
¶When I arose and saw the dawn,I sigh'd for thee;When light rode high, and the dew was gone,And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,And the weary Day turn'd to his restLingering like an unloved guest,I sigh'd for thee.
¶Thy brother Death came, and criedWouldst thou me?Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,Murmur'd like a noon-tide beeShall I nestle near thy side ?Wouldst thou me?—And I repliedNo, not thee!
¶Death will come when thou art dead,Soon, too soon—Sleep will come when thou art fled;Of neither would I ask the boonI ask of thee, beloved Night—Swift be thine approaching flight,Come soon, soon!
Ode to the West Wind
¶O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thouWho chariotest to their dark wintry bedThe winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,[834]Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the spring shall blowHer clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill(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, O hear!
¶Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,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 spreadOn the blue surface of thine airy surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the headOf some fierce Maenad, ev'n from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith's height—The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirgeOf the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre,Vaulted with all thy congregated might,Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
¶Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he layLull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day,All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic's level powersCleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, knowThy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fearAnd tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
¶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[835]The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan Thou, O uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could beThe comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speedScarce seem'd a vision, I would ne'er have strivenAs thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.0 lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'dOne too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
¶Make me thy lyre, ev'n as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;And, by the incantation of this verse,Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearthAshes and sparks, my words among mankind!Be through my lips to unawaken'd earthThe trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
¶WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS, NORTH ITALY
¶MANY a green isle needs must beIn the deep wide sea of misery,Or the mariner, worn and wan,Never thus could voyage onDay and night, and night and day,Drifting on his dreary way,With the solid darkness blackClosing round his vessel's track;Whilst above, the sunless skyBig with clouds, hangs heavily,And behind the tempest fleetHurries on with lightning feet,[836]Riving sail, and cord, and plank,Till the ship has almost drankDeath from the o'er-brimming deep;And sinks down, down, like that sleepWhen the dreamer seems to beWeltering through eternity;And the dim low line beforeOf a dark and distant shoreStill recedes, as ever stillLonging with divided will,But no power to seek or shun,He is ever drifted onO'er the unreposing wave,To the haven of the grave.What, if there no friends will greet;What, if there no heart will meetHis with love's impatient beat;Wander whereso'er he may,Can he dream before that dayTo find refuge from distressIn friendship's smile, in love's caress?Then 'twill wreak him little woeWhether such there be or no:Senseless is the breast, and cold,Which relenting love would fold;Bloodless are the veins and chillWhich the pulse of pain did fill;Every little living nerveThat from bitter words did swerveRound the tortured lips and brow,Are like sapless leaflets nowFrozen upon December's bough.
¶On the beach of a northern seaWhich 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,[837]Where a few gray rushes stand,Boundaries of the sea and land:Nor is heard one voice of wailBut the sea-mews, as they sailO'er the billows of the gale;Or the whirlwind up and downHowling, like a slaughtered town,When a king in glory ridesThrough the pomp of fratricides:Those unburied bones aroundThere is many a mournful sound;There is no lament for him,Like a sunless vapour, dim,Who once clothed with life and thoughtWhat now moves nor murmurs not.
¶Ay, many flowering islands lieIn the waters of wide Agony:To such a one this morn was ledMy bark, by soft winds piloted.—'Mid the mountains EuganeanI stood listening to the paeanWith which the legion'd rooks did hailThe Sun's uprise majestical:Gathering round with wings all hoar,Through the dewy mist they soarLike gray shades, till the eastern heavenBursts, and then,—as clouds of evenFleck'd with fire and azure, lieIn the unfathomable sky,—So their plumes of purple grainStarr'd with drops of golden rainGleam above the sunlight woods,As in silent multitudesOn the morning's fitful galeThrough the broken mist they sail;And the vapours cloven and gleamingFollow down the dark steep streaming,Till all is bright, and clear, and stillRound the solitary hill.[838]Beneath is spread like a green seaThe waveless plain of Lombardy,Bounded by the vaporous air,Islanded by cities fair;Underneath day's azure eyes,Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,—A peopled labyrinth of walls,Amphrite's destined halls,Which her hoary sire now pavesWith his blue and beaming waves.Lo! the sun upsprings behind,Broad, red, radiant, half-reclinedOn the level quivering lineOf the waters crystalline;And before that chasm of light,As within a furnace bright,Column, tower, and dome, and spire,Shine like obelisks of fire,Pointing with inconstant motionFrom the altar of dark oceanTo the sapphire-tinted skies;As the flames of sacrificeFrom the marble shrines did riseAs to pierce the dome of goldWhere Apollo spoke of old.
¶Sun-girt City! thou hast beenOcean'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 hereHallow so thy watery bier.A less drear ruin then than nowWith thy conquest-branded browStooping to the slave of slavesFrom thy throne among the waves,Wilt thou be,—when the sea-mewFlies, as once before it flew,O'er thine isles depopulate,And all is in its ancient state,[839]Save where many a palace-gateWith green sea-flowers overgrownLike a rock of ocean's own,Topples o'er the abandon'd seaAs the tides change sullenly.The fisher on his watery wayWandering at the close of day,Will spread his sail and seize his oarTill he pass the gloomy shore,Lest thy dead should, from their sleep,Bursting o'er the starlight deep,Lead a rapid masque of deathO'er the waters of his path.
¶Noon descends around me now:'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,When a soft and purple mistLike a vaporous amethyst,Or an air-dissolved starMingling light and fragrance, farFrom the curved horizon's boundTo the point of heaven's profound,Fills the overflowing sky;And the plains that silent lieUnderneath; the leaves unsoddenWhere the infant frost has troddenWith his morning-winged feetWhose bright print is gleaming yet;And the red and golden vinesPiercing with their trellised linesThe rough, dark-skirted wilderness;The dun and bladed grass no less,Pointing from this hoary towerIn the windless air; the flowerGlimmering at my feet; the lineOf the olive-sandall'd ApennineIn the south dimly islanded;And the Alps, whose snows are spreadHigh between the clouds and sun;And of living things each one;[840]And my spirit, which so longDarken'd this swift stream of song,—Interpenetrated lieBy the glory of the sky;Be it love, light, harmony,Odour, or the soul of allWhich from heaven like dew doth fall,Or the mind which feels this verse,Peopling the lone universe.
¶Noon descends, and after noonAutumn's evening meets me soon,Leading the infantine moonAnd that one star, which to herAlmost seems to ministerHalf the crimson light she bringsFrom the sunset's radiant springs:And the soft dreams of the morn(Which like winged winds had borneTo that silent isle, which lies'Mid remember'd agonies,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 beIn the sea of life and agony:Other spirits float and fleeO'er that gulf: ev'n now, perhaps,On some rock the wild wave wraps,With folding wings they waiting sitFor my bark, to pilot itTo some calm and blooming cove,Where for me, and those I love,May a windless bower be built,Far from passion, pain, and guilt,In a dell 'mid lawny hillsWhich the wild sea-murmur fills,And soft sunshine, and the sound[841]Of old forests echoing round,And the light and smell divineOf all flowers that breathe and shine.—We may live so happy there,That the spirits of the airEnvying us, may even enticeTo our healing paradiseThe polluting multitude;But their rage would be subduedBy that clime divine and calm,And the winds whose wings rain balmOn the uplifted soul, and leavesUnder which the bright sea heaves;While each breathless intervalIn their whisperings musicalThe inspired soul suppliesWith its own deep melodies;And the Love which heals all strifeCircling, like the breath of life,All things in that sweet abodeWith its own mild brotherhood.They, not it, would change; and soonEvery sprite beneath the moonWould repent its envy vain,And the Earth grow young again!
Hymn to the Spirit of Nature
¶LIFE of Life! Thy lips enkindleWith their love the breath between them;And thy smiles before they dwindleMake the cold air fire; then screen themIn those locks, where whoso gazesFaints, entangled in their mazes.
¶Child of Light! Thy limbs are burningThrough the veil which seems to hide them,As the radiant lines of morningThrough thin clouds, ere they divide them;And this atmosphere divinestShrouds thee whereso'er thou shinest.[842]Fair are others: none beholds Thee;But thy voice sounds low and tenderLike the fairest, for it folds theeFrom the sight, that liquid splendour;And all feel, yet see thee never,—As I feel now, lost for ever!
¶Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movestIts dim shapes are clad with brightness,And the souls of whom thou lovestWalk upon the winds with lightnessTill they fail, as I am failing,Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
A Lament
¶O WORLD ! OLife! 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—O never more!
¶Out of the day and nightA joy has taken flight:Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoarMove my faint heart with grief, but with delightNo more—O never more!
A Dream of the Unknown
¶I DREAM ' D that as I wander'd by the wayBare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,And gentle odours led my steps astray,Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuringAlong a shelving bank of turf, which layUnder a copse, and hardly dared to flingIts green arms round the bosom of the stream,But kiss'd it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream
¶There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,[843]The constellated flower that never sets;Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birthThe sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wetsIts mother's face with heaven-collected tears,When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
¶And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour'd May,And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wineWas the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day;And wild roses, and ivy serpentineWith its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;And flowers azure, black, and streak'd with gold,Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.
¶And nearer to the river's trembling edgeThere grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank't withAnd starry river-buds among the sedge,And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,Which lit the oak that overhung the hedgeWith moonlight beams of their own watery light;And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep greenAs soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
¶Methought that of these visionary flowersI made a nosegay, bound in such a wayThat the same hues, which in their natural bowersWere mingled or opposed, the like arrayKept these imprison'd children of the HoursWithin my hand,—and then, elate and gay,I hasten'd to the spot whence I had comeThat I might there present it—O! to whom?
The Invitation
¶BEST and Brightest, come away,Fairer far than this fair day,Which, like thee, to those in sorrowComes to bid a sweet good-morrowTo the rough year just awakeIn its cradle on the brake.[844]The brightest hour of unborn SpringThrough the winter wandering,Found, it seems, the halcyon mornTo hoar February born;Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,It kiss'd 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,And breathed upon the frozen mountains,And like a prophetess of MayStrew'd flowers upon the barren way,Making the wintry world appearLike one on whom thou smilest, Dear.
¶Away, away, from men and towns,To the wild wood and the downs—To the silent wildernessWhere the soul need not repressIts music, lest it should not findAn echo in another's mind,While the touch of Nature's artHarmonizes heart to heart.
¶I leave this notice on my doorFor each accustomed visitor:—"I am gone into the fieldsTo 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,—I will pay you in the grave,—Death will listen to your stave.Expectation too, be off!To-day is for itself enough;Hope, in pity mock not WoeWith smiles, nor follow where I go;Long having lived on thy sweet food,At length I find one moment's goodAfter long pain—with all your love,This you never told me of."[845]Radiant Sister of the DayAwake! arise! and come away!To the wild woods and the plains,To the pools where winter rainsImage all their roof of leaves,Where the pine its garland weavesOf sapless green, and ivy dun,Round stems that never kiss the sun,Where the lawns and pastures be,And the sandhills of the sea,Where the melting hoar-frost wetsThe daisy-star that never sets,And wind-flowers and violetsWhich yet join not scent to hueCrown the pale year weak and new;When the night is left behindIn the deep east, dim and blind,And the blue noon is over us,And the multitudinousBillows murmur at our feet,Where the earth and ocean meet,And all things seem only oneIn the universal Sun.
The Recollection
¶Now the last day of many daysAll beautiful and bright as thou,The loveliest and the last, is dead:Rise, Memory, and write its praise!Up, do thy wonted work! come, traceThe epitaph of glory fled,For now the earth has changed its face,A frown is on the Heaven's brow.
¶We wander'd to the Pine ForestThat skirts the Ocean's foam;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[846]The smile of Heaven lay;It seem'd as if the hour were oneSent from beyond the skiesWhich scatter'd from above the sunA light of Paradise!
¶We paused amid the pines that stoodThe giants of the waste,Tortured by storms to shape as rudeAs serpents interlaced,—And soothed by every azure breathThat under heaven is blownTo harmonies and hues beneath,As tender as its own:Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,Like green waves on the sea,As still as in the silent deepThe ocean-woods may be.
¶How calm it was!—the silence thereBut such a chain was bound,That even the busy woodpeckerMade stiller by her soundThe inviolable quietness;The breath of peace we drewWith its soft motion made not lessThe calm that round us grew.There seem'd, from the remotest seatOf the wide mountain wasteTo the soft flower beneath our feetA magic circle traced,A spirit interfused around,A thrilling silent life;To momentary peace it boundOur mortal nature's strife;—And still I felt the centre ofThe magic circle thereWas one fair Form that fill'd with loveThe lifeless atmosphere.
¶We paused beside the pools that lieUnder the forest bough;[847]Each seem'd as 'twere a little skyGulf'd in a world below;A firmament of purple lightWhich in the dark earth lay,More boundless than the depth of nightAnd purer than the day—In which the lovely forests grewAs in the upper air,More perfect both in shape and hueThan any spreading there.There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,And through the dark-green woodThe white sun twinkling like the dawnOut of a speckled cloud.Sweet views which in our world aboveCan never well be seenWere imaged by the water's loveOf that fair forest green:And all was interfused beneathWith an Elysian glow,An atmosphere without a breath,A softer day below.Like one beloved, the scene had lentTo the dark water's breastIts every leaf and lineamentWith more than truth exprest;Until an envious wind crept by,Like an unwelcome thoughtWhich from the mind's too faithful eyeBlots one dear image out.—Though Thou art ever fair and kind,The forests ever green,Less oft is peace in Shelley's mindThan calm in waters seen!
5/1 To THE MOON
¶ART thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,Wandering companionless[848]Among the stars that have a different birth,—And ever-changing, like a joyless eyeThat finds no object worth its constancy?
A Widow Bird
¶A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her LoveUpon a wintry bough;The frozen wind crept on aboveThe freezing stream below.
¶There was no leaf upon the forest bare,No flower upon the ground,And little motion in the airExcept the mill-wheel's sound.
To A LADY, WITH A GUITAR
¶ARIEL to Miranda:—Take
¶This slave of music, for the sakeOf him, who is the slave of thee;And teach it all the harmonyIn which thou canst, and only thou,Make the delighted spirit glow,Till joy denies itself againAnd, too intense, is turn'd to pain.For by permission and commandOf thine own Prince Ferdinand,Poor Ariel sends this silent tokenOf more than ever can be spoken;Your guardian spirit, Ariel, whoFrom life to life must still pursueYour happiness, for thus aloneCan Ariel ever find his own;From Prospero's enchanted cell,As the mighty verses tell,To the throne of Naples heLit you o'er the trackless sea,Flitting on, your prow before,Like a living meteor.When you die, the silent Moon[849]In her interlunar swoonIs not sadder in her cellThan deserted Ariel;When you live again on earth,Like an unseen Star of birthAriel guides you o'er the seaOf life from your nativity:Many changes have been runSince Ferdinand and you begunYour course of love, and Ariel stillHas track'd your steps and served your will.Now in humbler, happier lot,This is all remember'd not;And now, alas! the poor sprite isImprison'd for some fault of hisIn a body like a grave—From you he only dares to craveFor his service and his sorrowA smile to-day, a song to-morrow.
¶The artist who this idol wroughtTo echo all harmonious thought,Fell'd a tree, while on the steepThe woods were in their winter sleep,Rock'd in that repose divineOn the wind-swept Apennine;And dreaming, some of autumn past,And some of spring approaching fast,And some of April buds and showers,And some of songs in July bowers,And all of love: And so this tree,—Oh that such our death may be!—Died in sleep, and felt no pain,To live in happier form again:From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,The artist wrought this loved Guitar;And taught it justly to replyTo all who question skilfullyIn language gentle as thine own;Whispering in enamour'd tone[850]Sweet oracles of woods and dells,And summer winds in sylvan cells;—For it had learnt all harmoniesOf 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,The melodies of birds and bees,The murmuring of summer seas,And pattering rain, and breathing dewAnd airs of evening; and it knewThat seldom-heard mysterious soundWhich, driven on its diurnal round,As it floats through boundless day,Our world enkindles on its way:—All this it knows, but will not tellTo those who cannot question wellThe spirit that inhabits it;It talks according to the witOf its companions; and no moreIs heard than has been felt beforeBy those who tempt it to betrayThese secrets of an elder day.But, sweetly as its answers willFlatter hands of perfect skill,It keeps its highest holiest toneFor our beloved Friend alone.
One Word Is Too Often Profaned
¶ONE word is too often profanedFor me to profane it,One feeling too falsely disdain'dFor thee to disdain it.One hope is too like despairFor prudence to smother,And Pity from thee more dearThan that from another.
¶I can give not what men call love;But wilt thou accept not[851]The worship the heart lifts aboveAnd the Heavens reject not:The desire of the moth for the star,Of the night for the morrow,The devotion to something afarFrom the sphere of our sorrow?
Ozymandias of Egypt
¶I MET a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sandHalf sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal these words appear:'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The Flight of Love
¶WHEN the lamp is shatter'dThe light in the dust lies dead—When the cloud is scatter'd,The rainbow's glory is shed.When the lute is broken,Sweet tones are remember'd not;When the lips have spoken,Loved accents are soon forgot.
¶As music and splendour.Survive not the lamp and the lute,The heart's echoes renderNo song when the spirit is mute—No song but sad dirges,Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,[852]Or the mournful surgesThat ring the dead seaman's knell.
¶When hearts have once mingled,Love first leaves the well-built nest;The weak one is singledTo endure what it once possesst.O Love! who bewailestThe frailty of all things here,Why choose you the frailestFor your cradle, your home, and your bier?
¶Its passions will rock theeAs the storms rock the ravens on high;Bright reason will mock theeLike the sun from a wintry sky.From thy nest every rafterWill rot, and thine eagle homeLeave thee naked to laughter,When leaves fall and cold winds come.
The Cloud
¶I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the seas and the streams;I bear light shade for the leaves when laidIn their noonday dreams.From my wings are shaken the dews that wakenThe 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,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,While I sleep in the arms of the blast.Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,Lightning my pilot sits,[853]In a cavern under is fretted the thunder,It struggles and howls at fits;Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,This pilot is guiding me,Lured by the love of the genii that moveIn the depths of the purple sea;Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,Over the lakes and the plains,Wherever he dream, under mountain or streamThe Spirit he loves remains;And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
¶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,Which an earthquake rocks and swings,An eagle alit one moment may sitIn the light of its golden wings.And when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath,Its ardours of rest and of love,And the crimson pall of eve may fallFrom the depth of heaven above,With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,As still as a brooding dove.
¶That orbed maiden with white fire laden,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,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,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.[854]I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;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 hang like a roof,The mountains its columns be.The triumphal arch through which I marchWith hurricane, fire, and snow,When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,Is the million-coloured bow;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;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,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.
§18 Stanzas — April, 1814
¶AWAY ! the moor is dark beneath the moon,Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
¶Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, 'Away!'Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.[855]Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
¶The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead,Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peacemay meet.
¶The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose,For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep:Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.
¶Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet, till the phantoms flee,Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not freeFrom the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.
5/9 Music, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE
¶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,Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,Love itself shall slumber on.
520 the Poet's Dream
¶ON a Poet's lips I sleptDreaming like a love-adeptIn the sound his breathing kept;Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,But feeds on the aerial kissesOf shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses.[856]He will watch from dawn to gloomThe lake-reflected sun illumeThe yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,Nor heed nor see what things they be—But from these create he canForms more real than living Man,Nurslings of Immortality!
The W or Ld's Wanderers
¶TELL me, thou Star, whose wings of lightSpeed thee in thy fiery flight,In what cavern of the nightWill thy pinions close now?
¶Tell me, Moon, thou pale and grayPilgrim of heaven's homeless way,In what depth of night or daySeekest thou repose now?
¶Weary Mind, who wanderestLike the world's rejected guest,Hast thou still some secret nestOn the tree or billow?
Adonais
¶Elegy on the Death of John Keats
¶I WEEP for Adonais—he is dead!O, weep for Adonais! though our tearsThaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!And thou, sad Hour, selected from all yearsTo mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: 'With meDied Adonais; till the Future daresForget the Past, his fate and fame shall beAn echo and a light unto eternity!'
¶Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which fliesIn darkness? where was lorn Urania[857]When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,'Mid listening Echoes, in her ParadiseShe sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,Rekindled all the fading melodiesWith which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.
p. 857¶Oh weep for Adonais—he is dead!Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bedThy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;For he is gone, where all things wise and fairDescend;—oh, dream not that the amorous DeepWill yet restore him to the vital air;Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.
¶Most musical of mourners, weep again!Lament anew, Urania!—He died,Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,The priest, the slave, and the liberticide,Trampled and mocked with many a loathed riteOf lust and blood; he went, unterrified,Into the gulf of death; but his clear SpriteYet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.
¶Most musical of mourners, weep anew!Not all to that bright station dared to climb;And happier they their happiness who knew,Whose tapers yet burn through that night of timeIn which suns perished; others more sublime,Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;And some yet live, treading the thorny road,Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.
¶But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished,The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;[858]Most musical of mourners, weep anew?Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and last,The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blewDied on the promise of the fruit, is waste;The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.
¶To that high Capital, where kingly DeathKeeps his pale court in beauty and decay,He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,A grave among the eternal.—Come away!Haste, while the vault of blue Italian dayIs yet his fitting charnel-roof! while stillHe lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;Awake him not! surely he takes his fillOf deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.
¶He will awake no more, oh, never more!—Within the twilight chamber spreads apace,The shadow of white Death, and at the doorInvisible Corruption waits to traceHis extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and aweSoothe her pale rage, nor dares she to defaceSo fair a prey, till darkness, and the lawOf change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.
¶Oh weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,The passion-winged Ministers of thought,Who were his flocks, whom near the living streamsOf his young spirit he fed, and whom he taughtThe love which was its music, wander not,—Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn theirRound the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.
¶And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries;'Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,[859]Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there liesA tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.'Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stainShe faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.
¶One from a lucid urn of starry dewWashed his light limbs as if embalming them;Another dipt her profuse locks, and threwThe wreath upon him, like an anadem,Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;Another in her wilful grief would breakHer bow and winged reeds, as if to stemA greater loss with one which was more weak;And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.
¶Another Splendour on his mouth alit,That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breathWhich gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,And pass into the panting heart beneathWith lightning and with music: the damp deathQuenched its caress upon his icy lips;And, as a dying meteor stains a wreathOf moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.
¶And others came . . . Desires and Adorations,Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,Splendours and Glooms, and glimmering IncarnationsOf hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleamOf her own dying smile instead of eyes,Came in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seemLike pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.
¶All he had loved, and moulded into thought,From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,Lamented Adonais. Morning soughtHer eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,[860]Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day;Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.
¶Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,And will no more reply to winds or fountains,Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;Since she can mimic not his lips, more dearThan those for whose disdain she pined awayInto a shadow of all sounds:—a drearMurmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.
¶Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw downHer kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flownFor whom should she have waked the sullen year?To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dearNor to himself Narcissus, as to bothThou, Adonais: wan they stand and sereAmid the faint companions of their youth,With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.
¶Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale,Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;Not so the eagle, who like thee could scaleHeaven, and could nourish in the sun's domainHer mighty youth with morning, doth complain,Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,As Albion wails for thee; the curse of CainLight on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!
¶Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,But grief returns with the revolving year;The airs and streams renew their joyous tone:The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;[861]Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier;The amorous birds now pair in every brake,And build their mossy homes in field and brere;And the green lizard, and the golden snake,Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.
¶Through wood and stream and field and hill and OceanA quickening life from the Earth's heart has burstAs it has ever done, with change and motion,From the great morning of the world when firstGod dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersedThe lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst;Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight,The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.
¶The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tenderExhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;Like incarnations of the stars, when splendourIs changed to fragrance, they illumine deathAnd mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knowsBe as a sword consumed before the sheathBy sightless lightning?—the intense atom glowsA moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.
¶Alas! that all we loved of him should beBut for our grief, as if it had not been,And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!Whence are we, and why are we? of what sceneThe actors or spectators? Great and meanMeet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow.As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.
¶He will awake no more, oh, never more!'Wake thou,' cried Misery, 'childless Mother, riseOut of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core,A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs.'[862]And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes,And all the Echoes whom their sister's songHad held in holy silence, cried: 'Arise!'Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.
¶She rose like an autumnal Night, that springsOut of the East, and follows wild and drearThe golden Day, which, on eternal wings,Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fearSo struck, so roused, so rapt Urania;So saddened round her like an atmosphereOf stormy mist; so swept her on her wayEven to the mournful place where Adonais lay.
¶Out of her secret Paradise she sped,Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,And human hearts, which to her airy treadYielding not, wounded the invisiblePalms of her tender feet where'er they fell:And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than theyRent the soft Form they never could repel,Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.
¶In the death-chamber for a moment Death,Shamed by the presence of that living Might,Blushed to annihilation, and the breathRevisited those lips, and Life's pale lightFlashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.'Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,As silent lightning leaves the starless night!Leave me not!' cried Urania: her distressRoused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vaincaress.
¶'Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;And in my heartless breast and burning brainThat word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,[863]With food of saddest memory kept alive,Now thou art dead, as dead, as if it were a partOf thee, my Adonais! I would giveAll that I am to be as thou now art!But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!
¶'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of menToo soon, and with weak hands though mighty heartDare the unpastured dragon in his den?Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was thenWisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, whenThy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer.
¶'The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead;The vultures to the conqueror's banner trueWho feed where Desolation first has fed,And whose wings rain contagion;—how they fled,When, like Apollo, from his golden bow,The Pythian of the age one arrow spedAnd smiled!—The spoilers tempt no second blow,They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.
¶'The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;He sets, and each ephemeral insect thenIs gathered into death without a dawn,And the immortal stars awake again;So is it in the world of living men:A godlike mind soars forth, in its delightMaking earth bare and veiling heaven, and whenIt sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its lightLeave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night.'
¶Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fameOver his living head like Heaven is bent,[864]An early but enduring monument,Came, veiling all the lightnings of his songIn sorrow; from her wilds Ierne sentThe sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue.
¶Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,A phantom among men; companionlessAs the last cloud of an expiring stormWhose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness,Actjeon-like, and now he fled astrayWith feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.
¶A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift—Love in desolation masked;—a PowerGirt round with weakness; —it can scarce upliftThe weight of the superincumbent hour;It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,A breaking billow;—even whilst we speakIs it not broken? On the withering flowerThe killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheekThe life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.
¶His head was bound with pansies overblown,And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grewYet dripping with the forest's noonday dew,Vibrated, as the ever-beating heartShook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crewHe came the last, neglected and apart;A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.
¶All stood aloof, and at his partial moanSmiled through their tears; well knew that gentle bandWho in another's fate now wept his own;As in the accents of an unknown land,[865]He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scannedThe Stranger's mien, and murmured: 'Who art thou?'He answered not, but with a sudden handMade bare his branded and ensanguined brow,Which was like Cain's or Christ's—oh, that it should be
¶What softer voice is hushed over the dead?Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed,In mockery of monumental stone,The heavy heart heaving without a moan?If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one;Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighsThe silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.
¶Our Adonais has drunk poison—Oh!What deaf and viperous murderer could crownLife's early cup with such a draught of woe?The nameless worm would now itself disown:It felt, yet could escape, the magic toneWhose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong,But what was howling in one breast alone,Silent with expectation of the song,Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.
¶Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!But be thyself, and know thyself to be!And ever at thy season be thou freeTo spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow:Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now.
¶Nor let us weep that our delight is fledFar from these carrion kites that scream below;He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.—[866]Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flowBack to the burning fountain whence it came,A portion of the Eternal, which must glowThrough time and change, unquenchably the same,Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.
¶Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—He hath awakened from the dream of life—'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keepWith phantoms an unprofitable strife,And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knifeInvulnerable nothings.—We decayLike corpses in a charnel; fear and griefConvulse us and consume us day by day,And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
¶He has outsoared the shadow of our night;Envy and calumny and hate and pain,And that unrest which men miscall delight,Can touch him not and torture not again;From the contagion of the world's slow stainHe is secure, and now can never mournA heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn,With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
¶He lives, he wakes—'tis Death is dead, not he;Mourn not for Adonais.—Thou young Dawn,Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from theeThe spirit thou lamentest is not gone;Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou AirWhich like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrownO'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bareEven to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!
¶He is made one with Nature: there is heardHis voice in all her music, from the moanOf thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;He is a presence to be felt and known[867]In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,Spreading itself where'er that Power may moveWhich has withdrawn his being to its own;Which wields the world with never wearied love,Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
¶He is a portion of the lovelinessWhich once he made more lovely: he doth bearHis part, while the one Spirit's plastic stressSweeps through the dull dense world, compelling thereAll new successions to the forms they wear;Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flightTo its own likeness, as each mass may bear;And bursting in its beauty and its mightFrom trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light.
¶The splendours of the firmament of timeMay be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;Like stars to their appointed height they climbAnd death is a low mist which cannot blotThe brightness it may veil. When lofty thoughtLifts a young heart above its mortal lair,And love and life contend in it, for whatShall be its earthly doom, the dead live thereAnd move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
¶The inheritors of unfulfilled renownRose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,Far in the Unapparent. ChattertonRose pale,—his solemn agony had notYet faded from him; Sidney, as he foughtAnd as he fell and as he lived and lovedSublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved:Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved.
¶And many more, whose names on Earth are dark,But whose transmitted effluence cannot dieSo long as fire outlives the parent spark,Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.[868]'Thou art become as one of us,' they cry,'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has longSwung blind in unascended majesty,Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song.Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!'
¶Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth,Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;As from a centre, dart thy spirit's lightBeyond all worlds, until its spacious mightSatiate the void circumference: then shrinkEven to a point within our day and night;And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sinkWhen hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.
¶Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchreOh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis noughtThat ages, empires, and religions thereLie buried in the ravage they have wrought;For such as he can lend,—they borrow notGlory from those who made the world their prey;And he is gathered to the kings of thoughtWho waged contention with their time's decay,And of the past are all that cannot pass away.
¶Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,The grave, the city, and the wilderness;And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dressThe bones of Desolation's nakedness,Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall leadThy footsteps to a slope of green accessWhere, like an infant's smile, over the deadA light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
¶And gray walls moulder round, on which dull TimeFeeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,Pavilioning the dust of him who planned[869]This refuge for his memory, doth standLike flame transformed to marble; and beneath,A field is spread, on which a newer bandHave pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death,Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.
¶Here pause: these graves are all too young as yetTo have outgrown the sorrow which consignedIts charge to each; and if the seal is set,Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou findThine own well full, if thou returnest home,Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter windSeek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.What Adonais is, why fear we to become?
¶The One remains, the many change and pass;Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,Stains the white radiance of Eternity,Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die,If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!Follow where all is fled!—Rome's azure sky,Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weakThe glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
¶Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?Thy hopes are gone before: from all things hereThey have departed: thou shouldst now depart!A light is passed from the revolving year,And man, and woman; and what still is dearAttracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.The soft sky smiles,—the low wind whispers near;'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,No more let Life divide what Death can join together.
¶That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,That Beauty in which all things work and move,That Benediction which the eclipsing CurseOf birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
James Henry Leigh Hunt
¶Which through the web of being blindly woveBy man and beast and earth and air and sea,Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors ofThe fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
¶The breath whose might I have invoked in sorigDescends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,Far from the shore, far from the trembling throngWhose 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.