In eloquent silence, through the depths of 200 Whither, as to a common centre, flocked

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

From SECTION V

"Hence commerce springs, the venal inter

change

Of all that human art or Nature yield; 40 Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand,

And natural kindness hasten to supply From the full fountain of its boundless love,

Forever stifled, drained, and tainted now. Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade

45 No solitary virtue dares to spring,

But poverty and wealth with equal hand Scatter their withering curses, and unfold

The doors of premature and violent death To pining famine and full-fed disease, 50 To all that shares the lot of human life, Which, poisoned body and soul, scarce drags the chain

That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind.

"Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, The signet of its all-enslaving power 55 Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: Before whose image bow the vulgar great,

lifts

His nature to the heaven of its pride,
Is bartered for the poison of his soul;
The weight that drags to earth his towering
hopes,

Blighting all prospect but of selfish gain,
85 Withering all passion but of slavish fear,
Extinguishing all free and generous love
Of enterprise and daring, even the pulse
That fancy kindles in the beating heart
To mingle with sensation, it destroys,-
90 Leaves nothing but the sordid lust of self,
The grovelling hope of interest and gold,
Unqualified, unmingled, unredeemed
Even by hypocrisy.

100

And statesmen boast
Of wealth! The wordy eloquence, that
lives

95 After the ruin of their hearts, can gild
The bitter poison of a nation's woe,
Can turn the worship of the servile mob
To their corrupt and glaring idol, fame,
From virtue, trampled by its iron tread,
Although its dazzling pedestal be raised
Amid the horrors of a limb-strewn field,
With desolated dwellings smoking round.
The man of ease, who, by his warm fireside,
To deeds of charitable intercourse,
And bare fulfilment of the common laws
Of decency and prejudice, confines
The struggling nature of his human heart,
Is duped by their cold sophistry; he sheds
A passing tear perchance upon the wreck

The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and 105
kings,

And with blind feelings reverence the

power

60 That grinds them to the dust of misery.

But in the temple of their hireling hearts 110 Of earthly peace, when near his dwelling's

Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn
All earthly things but virtue.

"Since tyrants, by the sale of human life, 65 Heap luxuries to their sensualism, and

fame

To their wide-wasting and insatiate pride, Success has sanctioned to a credulous world 115 The ruin, the disgrace, the woe of war. His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes 70 The despot numbers; from his cabinet These puppets of his schemes he moves at will,

Even as the slaves by force or famine driven,

Beneath a vulgar master, to perform A task of cold and brutal drudgery;75 Hardened to hope, insensible to fear, Scarce living pulleys of a dead machine, Mere wheels of work and articles of trade, That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth!

door

The frightful waves are driven,-when his

Whose life is misery, and fear, and care; Whom the morn wakens but to fruitless toil;

Who ever hears his famished offspring's scream,

Whom their pale mother's uncomplaining

gaze

Forever meets, and the proud rich man's

Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing
Within the Fairy's fane.

Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch,
Nor the burnished ocean-waves

Paving that gorgeous dome,

So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.
30 Yet likest evening's vault, that faëry Hall!
As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it
spread

35

Seek out-less often sought than found- 40
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
(1792-1822)

QUEEN MAB

1812.

1813

From SECTION II

If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
Until the sun's broad orb

Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines

Of purple gold that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:

Thou must have marked the billowy

clouds,

Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet

Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point

15 Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge.
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;

1 The killed or wounded Spartan was carried from the battle-field on his shield.

2 Byron's mother was a descendant of James I; his father traced his ancestry to heroes of the time of the Norman Conquest.

45

Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea;

Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around

Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.

The magic car no longer moved.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Entered the Hall of Spells.
Those golden clouds

That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy

With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;
The light and crimson mists,

Floating to strains of thrilling melody

Through that unearthly dwelling, 50 Yielded to every movement of the will; Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned, And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,

55

Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.

"Spirit!" the Fairy said,
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
"This is a wondrous sight

And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue's only meed to dwell
60 In a celestial palace, all resigned
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will

Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled. Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come! 65 This is thine high reward:-the past shall rise;

70

Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future."

The Fairy and the Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement.Below lay stretched the universe!

In eloquent silence, through the depths of 200 Whither, as to a common centre, flocked