Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose

Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there. heard

521

Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
He He must descend. With rapid steps he went
Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
The forest's solemn canopies were changed
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and
stemmed

The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
An unaccustomed presence, and the sound
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
To stand beside him-clothed in no bright robes
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, 481
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery ;-
But undulating woods, and silent well,

And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom

The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,

Now deepening the dark shades, for speech Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,

assuming,

The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows

thin

540

And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
Had shone, gleam stony orbs:-so from his steps
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued
The stream, that with a larger volume now
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell, and there
Fretted a path through its descending curves
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and, its precipice
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning

Tell where these living thoughts reside, when Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
stretched
Of the remote horizon. The near scene,

Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste In naked and severe simplicity,
I' the passing wind!''

Beside the grassy shore Of the small stream he went; he did impress On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught

Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
Yielding one only response, at each pause
In most familiar cadence, with the howl,
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams

560

Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river, Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,

one

Roused by some joyous madness from the couch Fell into that immeasurable void

Of fever, he did move; yet not like him Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame

Scattering its waters to the passing winds. 1 withered grass-stalks

570

Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine And torrent were not all;-one silent nook

Was there. Even on the edge of that vast
mountain,

Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
It overlooked in its serenity

The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.
It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
And did embower with leaves for ever green,
And berries dark, the smooth and even space
Of its inviolated floor, and here

580

The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,
In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose
decay,

Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
Rivals the pride of summer.

'Tis the haunt

Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

When on the threshold of the green recess The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death

Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
Did he resign his high and holy soul
To images of the majestic past,

That paused within his passive being now, 630
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they

breathe

Through some dim latticed chamber. He did

place

His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone
Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
Of that obscurest chasm;-and thus he lay,
Surrendering to their final impulses

The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,
590 The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear 640
Marred his repose, the influxes of sense,
And his own being unalloyed by pain,
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
One human step alone, has ever broken
The stillness of its solitude:-one voice
Alone inspired its echoes;-even that voice
Which hither came, floating among the winds,
And led the loveliest among human forms
To make their wild haunts the depository
Of all the grace and beauty that endued
Its motions, render up its majesty,
Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 600
That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.
The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and
poured

The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there

650

At peace, and faintly smiling:-his last sight
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It rests, and still as the divided frame
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
That ever beat in mystic sympathy
With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:
And when two lessening points of light alone
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate

A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a star
Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
Slept, clasped in his embrace.-O, storm of Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his

Death!

gasp

Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
The stagnate night:-till the minutest ray

heart.

Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: It paused-it fluttered. But when heaven reAnd thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still

Guiding its irresistible career

In thy devastating omnipotence,

611

mained
Utterly black, the murky shades involved
An image, silent, cold, and motionless,

Art king of this frail world! from the red field As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.

Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls
His brother Death. A rare and regal prey
He hath prepared, prowling around the world;
Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and

men

621 Go to their graves like flowers or creeping

worms,

Even as a vapour fed with golden beams
That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame-
No sense, no motion, no divinity-

660

For life and power, even when his feeble hand
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled
Like some frail exhalation; which the dawn
Robes in its golden beams,-ah! thou hast fled!
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
689
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
In vesper low or joyous orison,

Lifts still its solemn voice:-but thou art fled;
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes 700
That image sleep in death, upon that form
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
Be shed-not even in thought. Nor, when those
hues

Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 710
And all the shows o' the world are frail and
vain

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

3 That is, they survived both him who imaged
them and him who nursed them.
Note by Shelley: "This poem was conceived
and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the
Arno, near Florence.
The phenomenon
alluded to at the conclusion of the third
stanza is well known to naturalists. The
vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers.
and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the
land in the change of seasons, and is conse
quently influenced by the winds which an-
nounce it."

The poem has something of the impetuosity of the wind--a breathless swiftness which seems almost to scorn rhyme, and which is characteristic of many of Shelley's longer poems. Characteristically, too, it breathes his intense "passion for reforming the world." the combination of which with lyric delicacy, as here, is exceedingly rare.

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
Ocean,
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and
proud.

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

THE INDIAN SERENADE

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright;
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me-who knows how?
To thy chamber window, sweet!

The wandering airs, they faint
On the dark, the silent stream;
The champak1 odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,

As I must die on thine.

On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast,
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

FROM PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

SONG*

Life of Life, thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those looks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them; As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds, ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others; none beholds thee,

But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee

From the sight, that liquid splendour, And all feel, yet see thee never, As I feel now, lost forever.

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest

Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

ASIA'S RESPONSE

My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, forever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!

Till, like one in slumber bound,

Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, Into a sea profound of ever-spreading sound.

We have passed Age's icy caves,

And Manhood's dark and tossing waves, And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray; Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee

Of shadow-peopled Infancy,

Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;*
A paradise of vaulted bowers

Lit by downward-gazing flowers,

And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,

12 Peopled by shapes too bright to see,

And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee; Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!

THE CLOUD

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
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

24 wield the flail of the lashing hail,

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions In music's most serene dominions; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.

*This is the song of an unseen spirit to Asia, who is the dramatic embodiment of the spirit of love working through all nature.

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