No, not thee!
V
Death will come when thou art dead,
30
Soon, too soon—
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, belovèd Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
35
Come soon, soon!
TIME
UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
5
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
10
Unfathomable Sea?
LINES
I
FAR, far away, O ye
Halcyons of Memory,
Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast!
5
No news of your false spring
To my heart’s winter bring,
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.
II
Vultures, who build your bowers
10
High in the Future’s towers,
Withered hopes on hopes are spread!
Dying joys, choked by the dead,
Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.
FROM THE ARABIC: AN IMITATION
I
MY faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;
It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.
5
Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest’s flight
Bore thee far from me;
My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,
Did companion thee.
II
Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
10
Or the death they bear,
The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;
In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,
15
Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.
TO EMILIA VIVIANI
I
MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet-basil and mignonette?
Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be.
5
Alas, and they are wet!
Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew
Such fragrance drew
From plant or flower—the very doubt endears
10
My sadness ever new,
The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.
II
Send the stars light, but send not love to me,
In whom love ever made
Health like a heap of embers soon to fade—
THE FUGITIVES
I
THE waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
5
The hoar-spray is dancing—
Away!
The whirlwind is rolling,
The thunder is tolling,
The forest is swinging,
The minster bells ringing—
10
Come away!
The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm—
15
Come away!
II
‘Our boat has one sail,
And the helmsman is pale;—
A bold pilot I trow,
Who should follow us now,’—
20
Shouted he—
And she cried: ‘Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!’—
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
25
O’er the sea.
And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
And though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast
30
From the lee.
III
And ‘Fear’st thou?’ and ‘Fear’st thou?’
And ‘Seest thou?’ and ‘Hear’st thou?’
And ‘Drive we not free
O’er the terrible sea,
35
I and thou?’
One boat-cloak did cover
The loved and the lover—
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
40
Soft and low;—
While around the lashed Ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
45
To and fro.
IV
In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,
Like a bloodhound well beaten
The bridegroom stands, eaten
50
By shame;
On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the gray tyrant father,
To his voice the mad weather
55
Seems tame;
And with curses as wild
As e’er clung to child,
He devotes to the blast,
The best, loveliest and last
60
Of his name!
TO—–
MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
5
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovèd bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
SONG
I
RARELY, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
5
Many a weary night and day
’Tis since thou art fled away.
II
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
10
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
III
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
15
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.
IV
Let me set my mournful ditty
20
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
V
25
I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night;
Autumn evening, and the morn
30
When the golden mists are born.
VI
I love snow, and all the forms
O
f the radiant frost;
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
35
Which is Nature’s, and may be
Untainted by man’s misery.
VII
I love tranquil solitude,
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good;
40
Between thee and me
What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.
VIII
I love Love—though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
45
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee—
Thou art love and life! Oh, come,
Make once more my heart thy home.
MUTABILITY
I
THE flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
5
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
II
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
10
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.
III
15
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
20
Dream thou—and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.
LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON
WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?
Art thou not overbold?
What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
5
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?
Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?
How! is not thy quick heart cold?
10
What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O’er the embers covered and cold
15
Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled—
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?
‘Who has known me of old,’ replied Earth,
‘Or who has my story told?
It is thou who art overbold.’
20
And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, ‘To my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled
And so with living motion all are fed,
And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.
25
‘Still alive and still bold,’ shouted Earth,
‘I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten thousandfold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
30
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,
Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.
‘Ay, alive and still bold,’ muttered Earth,
‘Napoleon’s fierce spirit rolled,
35
In terror and blood and gold,
A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;
And weave into his shame, which like the dead
40
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled.
SONNET: POLITICAL GREATNESS
NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
5
History is but the shadow of their shame,
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit
10
By force or custom? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
THE AZIOLA
I
‘Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,’
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;
5
And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, ‘Who is Aziola?’ How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate:
10
And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed, and said, ‘Disquiet yourself not;
’Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
II
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
15
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,
And fields and marshes wide,—
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than them all.
20
Sad Aziola! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry,
A LAMENT
I
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?
5
No more—Oh, never more!
II
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
10
No more—Oh, never more!
REMEMBRANCE
I
SWIFTER far than summer’s flight—
Swifter far than youth’s delight—
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone—
5
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.
II
The swallow summer comes again—
The owlet night resumes her reign—
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou.—
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
15
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.
II
Lilies for a bridal bed—
Roses for a matron’s head—
Violets for a maiden dead—
20
Pansies let my flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear—
Let no friend, however dear,
Waste one hope, one fear for me.
TO EDWARD WILLIAMS
I
THE serpent is shut out from Paradise.
The wounded deer must seek the h
erb no more
In which its heart-cure lies:
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower
5
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs
Fled in the April hour.
I too must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.
II
Of hatred I am proud,—with scorn content;
10
Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown
Itself indifferent;
But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one
15
Turns the mind’s poison into food,—
Its medicine is tears,—its evil good.
III
Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly
Your looks, because they stir
20
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die:
The very comfort that they minister
I scarce can bear, yet I,
So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.
IV
25
When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.
You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life’s dull scene,—
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 97
