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The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book)

Page 102

by Percy Bysshe Shelley


  Than any waving there.

  Like one beloved the scene had lent

  To the dark water’s breast

  95

  Its every leaf and lineament

  With that clear truth expressed;

  There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,

  And through the dark green crowd

  The white sun twinkling like the dawn

  100

  Under a speckled cloud.

  Sweet views, which in our world above

  Can never well be seen,

  Were imaged by the water’s love

  Of that fair forest green.

  105

  And all was interfused beneath

  With an Elysian air,

  An atmosphere without a breath,

  A silence sleeping there.

  Until a wandering wind crept by,

  110

  Like an unwelcome thought,

  Which from my mind’s too faithful eye

  Blots thy bright image out.

  For thou art good and dear and kind,

  The forest ever green,

  But less of peace in S—–’s mind,

  Than calm in waters, seen.

  WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE

  ARIEL to Miranda:—Take

  This slave of Music, for the sake

  Of him who is the slave of thee,

  And teach it all the harmony

  In which thou canst, and only thou,

  Make the delighted spirit glow,

  Till joy denies itself again,

  And, too intense, is turned to pain;

  For by permission and command

  10

  Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,

  Poor Ariel sends this silent token

  Of more than ever can be spoken;

  Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who,

  From life to life, must still pursue

  15

  Your happiness;—for thus alone

  Can Ariel ever find his own.

  From Prospero’s enchanted cell,

  As the mighty verses tell,

  To the throne of Naples, he

  20

  Lit you o’er the trackless sea,

  Flitting on, your prow before,

  Like a living meteor.

  When you die, the silent Moon,

  In her interlunar swoon,

  25

  Is not sadder in her cell

  Than deserted Ariel.

  When you live again on earth,

  Like an unseen star of birth,

  Ariel guides you o’er the sea

  30

  Of life from your nativity.

  Many changes have been run

  Since Ferdinand and you begun

  Your course of love, and Ariel still

  Has tracked your steps, and served your will;

  35

  Now, in humbler, happier lot,

  This is all remembered not;

  And now, alas! the poor sprite is

  Imprisoned, for some fault of his,

  In a body like a grave;—

  40

  From you he only dares to crave,

  For his service and his sorrow,

  A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

  The artist who this idol wrought,

  To echo all harmonious thought,

  45

  Felled a tree, while on the steep

  The woods were in their winter sleep,

  Rocked in that repose divine

  On the wind-swept Apennine;

  And dreaming, some of Autumn past,

  50

  And some of Spring approaching fast,

  And some of April buds and showers,

  And some of songs in July bowers,

  And all of love; and so this tree,—

  O that such our death may be!—

  55

  Died in sleep, and felt no pain,

  To live in happier form again:

  From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,

  The artist wrought this loved Guitar,

  And taught it justly to reply,

  60

  To all who question skilfully,

  In language gentle as thine own;

  Whispering in enamoured tone

  Sweet oracles of woods and dells,

  And summer winds in sylvan cells;

  65

  For it had learned all harmonies

  Of the plains and of the skies,

  Of the forests and the mountains,

  And the many-voicèd fountains;

  The clearest echoes of the hills,

  70

  The softest notes of falling rills,

  The melodies of birds and bees,

  The murmuring of summer seas,

  And pattering rain, and breathing dew,

  And airs of evening; and it knew

  75

  That seldom-heard mysterious sound,

  Which, driven on its diurnal round,

  As it floats through boundless day,

  Our world enkindles on its way.—

  All this it knows, but will not tell

  To those who cannot question well

  The Spirit that inhabits it;

  It talks according to the wit

  Of its companions; and no more

  Is heard than has been felt before,

  85

  By those who tempt it to betray

  These secrets of an elder day:

  But, sweetly as its answers will

  Flatter hands of perfect skill,

  It keeps its highest, holiest tone

  90

  For our belovèd Jane alone.

  TO JANE: ‘THE KEEN STARS WERE TWINKLING’

  I

  THE keen stars were twinkling,

  And the fair moon was rising among them,

  Dear Jane!

  The guitar was tinkling,

  5

  But the notes were not sweet till you sung them

  Again.

  II

  As the moon’s soft splendour

  O’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven

  Is thrown,

  10

  So your voice most tender

  To the strings without soul had then given

  Its own.

  III

  The stars will awaken,

  Though the moon sleep a full hour later,

  15

  To-night;

  No leaf will be shaken

  Whilst the dews of your melody scatter

  Delight.

  IV

  Though the sound overpowers,

  20

  Sing again, with your dear voice revealing

  A tone

  Of some world far from ours,

  Where music and moonlight and feeling

  Are one.

  A DIRGE

  ROUGH wind, that moanest loud

  Grief too sad for song;

  Wild wind, when sullen cloud

  Knells all the night long;

  5

  Sad storm, whose tears are vain,

  Bare woods, whose branches strain,

  Deep caves and dreary main,—

  Wail, for the world’s wrong!

  LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI

  SHE left me at the silent time

  When the moon had ceased to climb

  The azure path of Heaven’s steep,

  And like an albatross asleep,

  5

  Balanced on her wings of light,

  Hovered in the purple night,

  Ere she sought her ocean nest

  In the chambers of the West.

  She left me, and I stayed alone

  10

  Thinking over every tone

  Which, though silent to the ear,

  The enchanted heart could hear,

  Like notes which die when born, but still

  Haunt the echoes of the hill;

  And feeling ever—oh, too much!—
<
br />   The soft vibration of her touch,

  As if her gentle hand, even now,

  Lightly trembled on my brow;

  And thus, although she absent were,

  20

  Memory gave me all of her

  That even Fancy dares to claim:—

  Her presence had made weak and tame

  All passions, and I lived alone

  In the time which is our owns

  25

  The past and future were forgot,

  As they had been, and would be, not.

  But soon, the guardian angel gone,

  The daemon reassumed his throne

  In my faint heart. I dare not speak

  30

  My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak

  I sat and saw the vessels glide

  Over the ocean bright and wide,

  Like spirit-wingèd chariots sent

  O’er some serenest element

  35

  For ministrations strange and far;

  As if to some Elysian star

  Sailed for drink to medicine

  Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.

  And the wind that winged their flight

  From the land came fresh and light,

  And the scent of wingèd flowers,

  And the coolness of the hours

  Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day.

  Were scattered o’er the twinkling day,

  45

  And the fisher with his lamp

  And spear about the low rocks damp

  Crept, and struck the fish which came

  To worship the delusive flame.

  Too happy they, whose pleasure sought

  Extinguishes all sense and thought

  Of the regret that pleasure leaves,

  Destroying life alone, not peace!

  LINES: ‘WE MEET NOT AS WE PARTED’

  I

  WE meet not as we parted,

  We feel more than all may see;

  My bosom is heavy-hearted,

  And thine full of doubt for me:—

  5

  One moment has bound the free.

  II

  That moment is gone for ever,

  Like lightning that flashed and died—

  Like a snowflake upon the river—

  Like a sunbeam upon the tide,

  10

  Which the dark shadows hide.

  III

  That moment from time was singled

  As the first of a life of pain;

  The cup of its joy was mingled

  —Delusion too sweet though vain!

  15

  Too sweet to be mine again.

  IV

  Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden

  That its life was crushed by you,

  Ye would not have then forbidden

  The death which a heart so true

  20

  Sought in your briny dew.

  V

  · · · · · · ·

  · · · · ·

  · · · · · · ·

  Methinks too little cost

  25

  For a moment so found, so lost!

  THE ISLE

  THERE was a little lawny islet

  By anemone and violet,

  Like mosaic, paven:

  And its roof was flowers and leaves

  5

  Which the summer’s breath enweaves,

  Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze

  Pierce the pines and tallest trees,

  Each a gem engraven;—

  Girt by many an azure wave

  10

  With which the clouds and mountains pave

  A lake’s blue chasm.

  FRAGMENT: TO THE MOON

  BRIGHT wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,

  To whom alone it has been given

  To change and be adored for ever,

  Envy not this dim world, for never

  5

  But once within its shadow grew

  One fair as —–

  EPITAPH

  THESE are two friends whose lives were undivided;

  So let their memory be, now they have glided

  Under the grave; let not their bones be parted,

  For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.

  NOTE ON POEMS OF 1822, BY MRS. SHELLEY

  THIS morn thy gallant bark

  Sailed on a sunny sea:

  ’Tis noon, and tempests dark

  Have wrecked it on the lee.

  Ah woe! ah woe!

  By Spirits of the deep

  Thou’rt cradled on the billow

  To thy eternal sleep.

  Thou sleep’st upon the shore

  Beside the knelling surge,

  And Sea-nymphs evermore

  Shall sadly chant thy dirge.

  They come, they come,

  The Spirits of the deep,—

  While near thy seaweed pillow

  My lonely watch I keep.

  From far across the sea

  I hear a loud lament,

  By Echo’s voice for thee

  From Ocean’s caverns sent.

  O list! O list!

  The Spirits of the deep!

  They raise a wail of sorrow,

  While I forever weep.

  WITH this last year of the life of Shelley these Notes end. They are not what I intended them to be. I began with energy, and a burning desire to impart to the world, in worthy language, the sense I have of the virtues and genius of the beloved and the lost; my strength has failed under the task. Recurrence to the past, full of its own deep and unforgotten joys and sorrows, contrasted with succeeding years of painful and solitary struggle, has shaken my health. Days of great suffering have followed my attempts to write, and these again produced a weakness and languor that spread their sinister influence over these notes. I dislike speaking of myself, but cannot help apologizing to the dead, and to the public, for not having executed in the manner I desired the history I engaged to give of Shelley’s writings.1

  The winter of 1822 was passed in Pisa, if we might call that season winter in which autumn merged into spring after the interval of but few days of bleaker weather. Spring sprang up early, and with extreme beauty. Shelley had conceived the idea of writing a tragedy on the subject of Charles I. It was one that he believed adapted for a drama; full of intense interest, contrasted character, and busy passion. He had recommended it long before, when he encouraged me to attempt a play. Whether the subject proved more difficult than he anticipated, or whether in fact he could not bend his mind away from the broodings and wanderings of thought, divested from human interest, which he best loved, I cannot tell; but he proceeded slowly, and threw it aside for one of the most mystical of his poems, the Triumph of Life, on which he was employed at the last.

  His passion for boating was fostered at this time by having among our friends several sailors. His favourite companion, Edward Ellerker Williams, of the 8th Light Dragoons, had begun his life in the navy, and had afterwards entered the army; he had spent several years in India, and his love for adventure and manly exercises accorded with Shelley’s taste. It was their favourite plan to build a boat such as they could manage themselves, and, living on the sea-coast, to enjoy at every hour and season the pleasure they loved best. Captain Roberts, R.N., undertook to build the boat at Genoa, where he was also occupied in building the Bolivar for Lord Byron. Ours was to be an open boat, on a model taken from one of the royal dockyards. I have since heard that there was a defect in this model, and that it was never seaworthy. In the month of February, Shelley and his friend went to Spezia to seek for houses for us. Only one was to be found at all suitable; however, a trifle such as not finding a house could not stop Shelley; the one found was to serve for all. It was unfurnished; we sent our furniture by sea, and with a good deal of precipitation, arising from his impatience, made our removal. We left Pisa on the 26th of April.

  The Bay of Spezia is of considera
ble extent, and divided by a rocky promontory into a larger and smaller one. The town of Lerici is situated on the eastern point, and in the depth of the smaller bay, which bears the name of this town, is the village of San Terenzo. Our house, Casa Magni, was close to this village; the sea came up to the door, a steep hill sheltered it behind. The proprietor of the estate on which it was situated was insane; he had begun to erect a large house at the summit of the hill behind, but his malady prevented its being finished, and it was falling into ruin. He had (and this to the Italians had seemed a glaring symptom of very decided madness) rooted up the olives on the hillside, and planted forest trees. These were mostly young, but the plantation was more in English taste than I ever elsewhere saw in Italy; some fine walnut and ilex trees intermingled their dark massy foliage, and formed groups which still haunt my memory, as then they satiated the eye with a sense of loveliness. The scene was indeed of unimaginable beauty. The blue extent of waters, the almost landlocked bay, the near castle of Lerici shutting it in to the east, and distant Porto Venere to the west; the varied forms of the precipitous rocks that bound in the beach, over which there was only a winding rugged footpath towards Lerici, and none on the other side; the tideless sea leaving no sands nor shingle, formed a picture such as one sees in Salvator Rosa’s landscapes only. Sometimes the sunshine vanished when the sirocco raged—the ‘ponente’ the wind was called on that shore. The gales and squalls that hailed our first arrival surrounded the bay with foam; the howling wind swept round our exposed house, and the sea roared unremittingly, so that we almost fancied ourselves on board ship. At other times sunshine and calm invested sea and sky, and the rich tints of Italian heaven bathed the scene in bright and ever-varying tints.

  The natives were wilder than the place. Our near neighbours of San Terenzo were more like savages than any people I ever before lived among. Many a night they passed on the beach, singing, or rather howling; the women dancing about among the waves that broke at their feet, the men leaning against the rocks and joining in their loud wild chorus. We could get no provisions nearer than Sarzana, at a distance of three miles and a half off, with the torrent of the Magra between; and even there the supply was very deficient. Had we been wrecked on an island of the South Seas, we could scarcely have felt ourselves farther from civilization and comfort; but, where the sun shines, the latter becomes an unnecessary luxury, and we had enough society among ourselves. Yet I confess housekeeping became rather a toilsome task, especially as I was suffering in my health, and could not exert myself actively.

 

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