Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose

And where its wrecks like shattered mountains | And man, and woman; and what still is dear
rise,
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers

And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness,
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.

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,

And gray walls moulder round, on which dull That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling
throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

Here pause: these graves are all too young as The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!

I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of

2 creeds and monarchies (to which, as such, Shelley was devotedly hostile) Shelley's drama of the modern Greeks' struggle for independence concludes with this Chorus, prophesying the return of that Golden Age when Saturn was fabled to have reigned over a universe of peace and love. Of the fulfillment of this prophecy Shelley had at times an ardent hope, which reaches perhaps its highest expression in this Chorus (with which compare Byron's Isles of Greece), and at other times a profound despair, which can easily be read in some of the lyrics that are given on subsequent pages.

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell,3 than One who rose,4 Than many unsubdued:5

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,
Oh, might it die or rest at last!

ΤΟ

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 heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

ΤΟ

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained

3 Pagan gods. 4 Christ.

A LAMENT

O world! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime?

No more-oh, never more!

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-oh, never more!

WHEN THE LAMP IS SHATTERED

When the lamp is shattered,

The light in the dust lies dead —
When the cloud is scattered,

42 The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

5 Objects of heathen idolatry.

The more or less historic Trojan War, and the woes of the Theban house of Laius and his

son (Edipus, belong of course to a time suc

ceeding the Golden Age of fable.

As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute:

No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Why choose you the frailest

Therefore, on every morrow,1 are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion.

The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white, 50
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thoroughs flowers and weed.

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES

St. Agnes' Eve4-Ah, bitter chill it was! With the green world they live in; and clear The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms2
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
1 morning
2 destinies

*See Eng. Lit., p. 258.

The hare limped trembling through the frozen

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they
desire.

The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline;

freeze,

Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails:

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb oratʼries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train1
Pass by-she heeded not at all: in vain

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
mails.

Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden
tongue

Flattered to tears this aged man and poor;
But no-already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake
to grieve.

And back retired; not cooled by high disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest
of the year.

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes,
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short:
The hallowed hour was near at hand: she sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn,
Hoodwinked2 with faery fancy; all amort,3
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,"
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft;
And so it chanced, for many a door was wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put cross-But for one moment in the tedious hours,

So, purposing each moment to retire,
She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,

wise on their breasts.

Buttressed from moonlight, stands he, and implores

All saints to give him sight of Madeline,

That he might gaze and worship all unseen; Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss-in sooth such things have been.

He ventures in: let no buzzed whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel:
For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,

Save one old beldame, weak in body and in
soul.

1 i. e., of robes (Keats) 3 dead
2 blinded (to all else)

* St. Agnes was a Roman virgin who suffered
martyrdom. At Mass, on the day sacred to
her, while the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) was
chanted, two lambs were dedicated to her,
and afterwards shorn and the wool woven
(stanza 13).

Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her; but soon she knew his face,
And grasped his fingers in her palsied hand,
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee from this
place;

They are all here to-night, the whole bloodthirsty race!

But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook5 Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,

And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his painèd heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
"A cruel man and impious thou art:
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart

Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hilde- From wicked men like thee. Go, go!-I deem

brand;

He had a fever late, and in the fit

He cursed thee and thine, both house and land: Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit More tame for his gray hairs-Alas me! flit! Flit like a ghost away."-"Ah, Gossip1 dear, We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit, And tell me how"-"Good Saints! not here, not here;

Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier.''

He followed through a lowly arched way, Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume; And as she muttered "" "Well-a-well-a-day!'' He found him in a little moonlight room, Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. "Now tell me where is Madeline,'' said he, "O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom Which none but secret sisterhood may see, When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously.''

St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' EveYet men will murder upon holy days: Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays, To venture so: it fills me with amaze To see thee, Porphyro!-St. Agnes' Eve! God's help! my lady fair the conjurer plays This very night; good angels her deceive!

Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem. 99

"I will not harm her, by all saints I swear," Quoth Porphyro: "O may I ne'er find grace When my weak voice shall whisper its last

prayer,

If one of her soft ringlets I displace,
Or look with ruffian passion in her face:
Good Angela, believe me by these tears;
Or I will, even in a moment's space,
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears,
And beard them, though they be more fanged
than wolves and bears."'

"Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul?
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken churchyard thing,
Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll;
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
Were never missed." Thus plaining, doth she
bring

A gentler speech from burning Porphyro;
So woful, and of such deep sorrowing,
That Angela gives promise she will 'do
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or

woe.

Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy,
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide
Him in a closet, of such privacy
That he might see her beauty unespied,

But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to And win perhaps that night a peerless bride, grieve."'

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