And sinks down in fear: so thou,
280
O Tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
285
Noon descends around me now:
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
290
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of Heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
295
Underneath, the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-wingèd feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
300
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
305
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
310
And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,—
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
315
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
320
Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
325
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like wingèd winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
330
Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
335
Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To 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 hills,
Which the wild-sea murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
350
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
355
To our healing Paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
360
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
365
With its own deep melodies,
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
370
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
SCENE FROM ‘TASSO’
MADDALO, a Courtier. PIGNA, a Minister.
MALPIGLIO, a Poet. ALBANO, an Usher.
Maddalo. No access to the Duke! You have not said
That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?
Pigna. Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna
Waits with state papers for his signature?
5
Malpiglio. The Lady Leonora cannot know
That I have written a sonnet to her fame,
In which I Venus and Adonis.
You should not take my gold and serve me not.
Albano. In truth I told her, and she smiled and said,
10
‘If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy,
Art the Adonis whom I love, and he
The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.’
O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio,
Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.
15
Malpiglio. The words are twisted in some double sense
That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me
Pigna. How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?
Albano. Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning,
His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed
20
The Princess sate within the window-seat,
And so her face was hid; but on her knee
Her hands were clasped, veinèd, and pale as snow,
And quivering—young Tasso, too, was there.
Maddalo. Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven
25
Thou drawest down smiles—they did not rain on thee.
Malpiglio. Would they were parching lightnings for his sake
On whom they fell!
SONG FOR ‘TASSO’
I
I LOVED—alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.
I thought, but not as now I do,
5
Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,
Of all that men had thought before,
And all that Nature shows, and more.
II
And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
10
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love; …
And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.
III
15
Sometimes I see before me flee
A silver spirit’s form, like thee,
O Leonora, and I sit
… still watching it,
Till by the grated casement’s ledge
20
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge
Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.
INVOCATION TO MISERY
I
COME, be happy!—sit near me,
Shadow-vested Misery:
Coy, unwilling, silent bride,
Mourning in thy robe of pride,
5
Desolation—deified!
II
Come, be happy!—sit near me:
Sad as I may seem to thee,
I am happier far than thou,
Lady, whose imperial br
ow
10
Is endiademed with woe.
III
Misery! we have known each other,
Like a sister and a brother
Living in the same lone home,
Many years—we must live some
15
Hours or ages yet to come.
IV
’Tis an evil lot, and yet
Let us make the best of it;
If love can live when pleasure dies,
We two will love, till in our eyes
20
This heart’s Hell seem Paradise.
V
Come, be happy!—lie thee down
On the fresh grass newly mown,
Where the Grasshopper doth sing
Merrily—one joyous thing
25
In a world of sorrowing!
VI
There our tent shall be the willow,
And mine arm shall be thy pillow;
Sounds and odours, sorrowful
Because they once were sweet, shall lull
30
Us to slumber, deep and dull.
VII
Ha! thy frozen pulses flutter
With a love thou darest not utter.
Thou art murmuring—thou art weeping—
Is thine icy bosom leaping
35
While my burning heart lies sleeping?
VIII
Kiss me;—oh! thy lips are cold:
Round my neck thine arms enfold—
They are soft, but chill and dead;
And thy tears upon my head
40
Burn like points of frozen lead.
IX
Hasten to the bridal bed—
Underneath the grave ’tis spread:
In darkness may our love be hid,
Oblivion be our coverlid—
45
We may rest, and none forbid.
X
Clasp me till our hearts be grown
Like two shadows into one;
Till this dreadful transport may
Like a vapour fade away,
50
In the sleep that lasts alway.
XI
We may dream, in that long sleep,
That we are not those who weep;
E’en as Pleasure dreams of thee,
Life-deserting Misery,
55
Thou mayst dream of her with me.
XII
Let us laugh, and make our mirth,
At the shadows of the earth,
As dogs bay the moonlight clouds,
Which, like spectres wrapped in shrouds,
60
Pass o’er night in multitudes.
XIII
All the wide world, beside us,
Show like multitudinous
Puppets passing from a scene;
What but mockery can they mean,
65
Where I am—where thou hast been?
STANZAS
WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES
I
THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon’s transparent might,
5
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around 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.
II
10
I see the Deep’s untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone,—
15
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
III
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
20
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned—
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
25
Others I see whom these surround—
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;—
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
IV
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
30
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
35
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
V
Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
40
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament—for I am one
Whom men love not,—and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
45
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.
THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE
A WOODMAN whose rough heart was out of tune
(I think such hearts yet never came to good)
Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood
5
Satiate the hungry dark with melody;—
And as a vale is watered by a flood,
Or as the moonlight fills the open sky
Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose
Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie
10
Like clouds above the flower from which they rose,
The singing of that happy nightingale
In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening till the star of dawn may fail,
Was interfused upon the silentness;
15
The folded roses and the violets pale
Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss
Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear
Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness
Of the circumfluous waters,—every sphere
20
And every flower and beam and cloud and wave,
And every wind of the mute atmosphere,
And every beast stretched in its ruggèd cave,
And every bird lulled on its mossy bough,
And every silver moth fresh from the grave
25
Which is its cradle—ever from below
Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far,
To be consumed within the purest glow
Of one serene and unapproachèd star,
As if it were a lamp of earthly light,
30
Unconscious, as some human lovers are,
Itself how low, how high beyond all height
The heaven where it would perish!—and every form
That worshipped in the temple of the night
Was awed into delight, and by the charm
35
Girt as with an interminable zone,
Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm
Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion
Out of their dreams; harmony became love
In every soul but one.
· · · · ·
40
And so this man returned with axe and saw
At evenin
g close from killing the tall treen,
The soul of whom by Nature’s gentle law
Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green
The pavement and the roof of the wild copse,
45
Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene
With jaggèd leaves,—and from the forest tops
Singing the winds to sleep—or weeping oft
Fast showers of aëreal water-drops
Into their mother’s bosom, sweet and soft,
50
Nature’s pure tears which have no bitterness;—
Around the cradles of the birds aloft
They spread themselves into the loveliness
Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers
Hang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss,
55
Make a green space among the silent bowers,
Like a vast fane in a metropolis,
Surrounded by the columns and the towers
All overwrought with branch-like traceries
In which there is religion—and the mute
60
Persuasion of unkindled melodies,
Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute
Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast
Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,
Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed
65
To such brief unison as on the brain
One tone, which never can recur, has cast,
One accent never to return again.
· · · · ·
The world is full of Woodmen who expel
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 86
