I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
5.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70
AN EXHORTATION.
(Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Pisa, April, 1820’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to 1819.)
Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets’ food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they, 5
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?
Poets are on this cold earth, 10
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
in a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do: 15
Fame is love disguised: if few
Find either, never think it strange
That poets range.
Yet dare not stain with wealth or power
A poet’s free and heavenly mind: 20
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
Children of a sunnier star, 25
Spirits from beyond the moon,
Oh, refuse the boon!
THE INDIAN SERENADE.
(Published, with the title, “Song written for an Indian Air”, in “The Liberal”, 2, 1822. Reprinted (“Lines to an Indian Air”) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. The poem is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and there is a description by Robert Browning of an autograph copy presenting some variations from the text of 1824. See Leigh Hunt’s “Correspondence”, 2, pages 264-8.)
1.
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, 5
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me — who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
2.
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream — 10
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint,
It dies upon her heart; —
As I must on thine, 15
Oh, beloved as thou art!
3.
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale. 20
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast; —
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last.
CANCELLED PASSAGE.
(Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.)
O pillow cold and wet with tears!
Thou breathest sleep no more!
TO SOPHIA (MISS STACEY).
(Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.)
1.
Thou art fair, and few are fairer
Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean;
They are robes that fit the wearer —
Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion
Ever falls and shifts and glances 5
As the life within them dances.
2.
Thy deep eyes, a double Planet,
Gaze the wisest into madness
With soft clear fire, — the winds that fan it
Are those thoughts of tender gladness 10
Which, like zephyrs on the billow,
Make thy gentle soul their pillow.
3.
If, whatever face thou paintest
In those eyes, grows pale with pleasure,
If the fainting soul is faintest 15
When it hears thy harp’s wild measure,
Wonder not that when thou speakest
Of the weak my heart is weakest.
4.
As dew beneath the wind of morning,
As the sea which whirlwinds waken, 20
As the birds at thunder’s warning,
As aught mute yet deeply shaken,
As one who feels an unseen spirit
Is my heart when thine is near it.
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.
The fragment included in the Harvard manuscript book.)
(With what truth may I say —
Roma! Roma! Roma!
Non e piu come era prima!)
1.
My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, and did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid, —
Here its ashes find a tomb, 5
But beneath this pyramid
Thou art not — if a thing divine
Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine
Is thy mother’s grief and mine.
2.
Where art thou, my gentle child? 10
Let me think thy spirit feeds,
With its life intense and mild,
The love of living leaves and weeds
Among these tombs and ruins wild; —
Let me think that through low seeds 15
Of sweet flowers and sunny grass
Into their hues and scents may pass
A portion —
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
Thy little footsteps on the sands
Of a remote and lonely shore;
The twinkling of thine infant hands,
Where now the worm will feed no more;
Thy mingled look of love and glee 5
When we returned to gaze on thee —
TO MARY SHELLEY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed — a lovely one —
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,
That leads to Sorrow’s most obscure abode; 5
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,
Where
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.
TO MARY SHELLEY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
The world is dreary,
And I am weary
Of wandering on without thee, Mary;
A joy was erewhile
In thy voice and thy smile, 5
And ‘tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.
ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
1.
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie 5
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.
2.
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer’s spirit into stone, 10
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
‘Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain. 15
3.
And from its head as from one body grow,
As … grass out of a watery rock,
Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow
And their long tangles in each other lock, 20
And with unending involutions show
Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock
The torture and the death within, and saw
The solid air with many a ragged jaw.
4.
And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft 25
Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;
Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft
Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise
Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,
And he comes hastening like a moth that hies 30
After a taper; and the midnight sky
Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.
5.
‘Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;
For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare
Kindled by that inextricable error, 35
Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air
Become a … and ever-shifting mirror
Of all the beauty and the terror there —
A woman’s countenance, with serpent-locks,
Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks. 40
LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY.
(Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Indicator”, December 22, 1819. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is headed “An Anacreontic”, and dated ‘January, 1820.’ Written by Shelley in a copy of Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, and presented to Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.)
1.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single; 5
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? —
2.
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another; 10
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth 15
If thou kiss not me?
FOLLOW TO THE DEEP WOOD’S WEEDS. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
Follow to the deep wood’s weeds,
Follow to the wild-briar dingle,
Where we seek to intermingle,
And the violet tells her tale
To the odour-scented gale, 5
For they two have enough to do
Of such work as I and you.
THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE.
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
At the creation of the Earth
Pleasure, that divinest birth,
From the soil of Heaven did rise,
Wrapped in sweet wild melodies —
Like an exhalation wreathing 5
To the sound of air low-breathing
Through Aeolian pines, which make
A shade and shelter to the lake
Whence it rises soft and slow;
Her life-breathing (limbs) did flow 10
In the harmony divine
Of an ever-lengthening line
Which enwrapped her perfect form
With a beauty clear and warm.
LOVE THE UNIVERSE TO-DAY. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
And who feels discord now or sorrow?
Love is the universe to-day —
These are the slaves of dim to-morrow,
Darkening Life’s labyrinthine way.
A GENTLE STORY OF TWO LOVERS YOUNG. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
A gentle story of two lovers young,
Who met in innocence and died in sorrow,
And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung
Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow
The lore of truth from such a tale? 5
Or in this world’s deserted vale,
Do ye not see a star of gladness
Pierce the shadows of its sadness, —
When ye are cold, that love is a light sent
From Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent? 10
LOVE’S TENDER ATMOSPHERE. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
There is a warm and gentle atmosphere
About the form of one we love, and thus
As in a tender mist our spirits are
Wrapped in the … of that which is to us
The health of life’s own life — 5
WEDDED SOULS. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
I am as a spirit who has dwelt
Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt
His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone
Unheard but in the silence of his blood, 5
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.
I have unlocked the golden melodies
Of his deep soul, as with a master-key,
And loosened them and bathed myself therein — 10
Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist
Clothing his wings with lightning.
IS IT THAT IN SOME BRIGHTER SPHERE. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
Is it that in some brighter sphere
We part from friends we meet with here?
Or do we see the Future pass
Over the Present’s dusky glass?
Or what is that that makes us seem 5
To patch up fragments of a dream,
Part of which comes true, and part
Beats and trembles in the heart?
SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?
Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?
And will the day that follows change thy doom?
Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way; 5
And who waits for thee in that cheerless home
Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return
Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
YE GENTLE VISITATIONS OF CALM THOUGHT. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
Ye gentle visitations of calm thought —
Moods like the memories of happier earth,
> Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,
Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, —
But that the clouds depart and stars remain, 5
While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!
MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause —
THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
And where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart — and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.
WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
1.
When a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair — her epitaph! 5
2.
When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusty Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day —
She remains, — it fades away. 10
WAKE THE SERPENT NOT. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
Wake the serpent not — lest he
Should not know the way to go, —
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping, 5
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he’s sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.
RAIN. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 31
