Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there. heard
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 Now deepening the dark shades, for assuming,
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, speech Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
Held commune with him, as if he and it Were all that was; only-when his regard Was raised by intense pensiveness-two eyes, 489 Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, And seemed with their serene and azure smiles To beckon him.
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 caves,
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass
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!''
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 Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river, Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, | Fell into that immeasurable void Scattering its waters to the passing winds. 1 withered grass-stalks
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
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore, In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,
Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
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 The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt 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
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
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir The stagnate night:-till the minutest ray Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
It paused-it fluttered. But when heaven re- mained.
Utterly black, the murky shades involved An image, silent, cold, and motionless,
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-
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
621 Go to their graves like flowers or creeping
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings The breath of heaven did wander-a bright
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, 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
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. It is a woe too "deep for tears,'' when all Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
1 magic decoction (For example of Medea's witchcraft, see the story of Jason)
2 Ahasuerus, the legendary Wandering Jew, said to have been condemned by Christ, for his insolence, to wander till Christ's second coming.
31. e.. immortal youth, the clirir ritae
4 Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality, last line.
'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 winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
5 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.
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
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
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 20 What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
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,
Oh, beloved as thou art!
Oh, lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain
1 An Indian tree of the Magnolia family.
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.
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!
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.
And we sail on, away, afar, Without a course, without a star, But by the instinct of sweet music driven; Till through Elysian garden islets By thee, most beautiful of pilots, Where never mortal pinnace glided, The boat of my desire is guided; Realms where the air we breathe is love, Which in the winds on the waves doth move, Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
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!
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.
241 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.
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 skyey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered 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 move In 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 stream,
In imagination reversing the course of nature. she passes back through the portals of earthly being to the spirit's condition of primordial immortality.
« PreviousContinue » |