Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  For the vision of Mahmud of the taking of Constantinople in 1453, see

  Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, volume 12 page 223.

  The manner of the invocation of the spirit of Mahomet the Second will be censured as over subtle. I could easily have made the Jew a regular conjuror, and the Phantom an ordinary ghost. I have preferred to represent the Jew as disclaiming all pretension, or even belief, in supernatural agency, and as tempting Mahmud to that state of mind in which ideas may be supposed to assume the force of sensations through the confusion of thought with the objects of thought, and the excess of passion animating the creations of imagination.

  It is a sort of natural magic, susceptible of being exercised in a degree by any one who should have made himself master of the secret associations of another’s thoughts.

  (7) THE CHORUS [L. 1060].

  The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of wars, etc., may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign. It will remind the reader ‘magno NEC proximus intervallo’ of Isaiah and Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil which we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps approaching state of society in which the ‘lion shall lie down with the lamb,’ and ‘omnis feret omnia tellus.’ Let these great names be my authority and my excuse.

  (8) SATURN AND LOVE THEIR LONG REPOSE SHALL BURST [L. 1090].

  Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of innocence and happiness. ALL those WHO FELL, or the Gods of Greece, Asia, and Egypt; the ONE WHO ROSE, or Jesus Christ, at whose appearance the idols of the Pagan World wore amerced of their worship; and the MANY UNSUBDUED, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America, certainly have reigned over the understandings of men in conjunction or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the arts, perpetually increasing, activity. The Grecian gods seem indeed to have been personally more innocent, although it cannot be said, that as far as temperance and chastity are concerned, they gave so edifying an example as their successor. The sublime human character of Jesus Christ was deformed by an imputed identification with a Power, who tempted, betrayed, and punished the innocent beings who were called into existence by His sole will; and for the period of a thousand years, the spirit of this most just, wise, and benevolent of men has been propitiated with myriads of hecatombs of those who approached the nearest to His innocence and wisdom, sacrificed under every aggravation of atrocity and variety of torture. The horrors of the Mexican, the Peruvian, and the Indian superstitions are well known.

  FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA

  Published in part (lines 1-69, 100-120) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; and again, with the notes, in “Poetical Works”, 1839. Lines 127-238 were printed by Dr. Garnett under the title of “The Magic Plant” in his “Relics of Shelley”, 1862. The whole was edited in its present form from the Boscombe manuscript by Mr. W.M. Rossetti in 1870 (“Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Moxon, 2 volumes.). ‘Written at Pisa during the late winter or early spring of 1822’ (Garnett).

  The following fragments are part of a Drama undertaken for the amusement of the individuals who composed our intimate society, but left unfinished. I have preserved a sketch of the story as far as it had been shadowed in the poet’s mind.

  An Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble nature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal love, for a while returns her passion; but at length, recalling the memory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from the Enchanted Island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes him again go to sea, and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to bring him, by a spirit-brewed tempest, back to her Island. — [MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1839.]

  SCENE. — BEFORE THE CAVERN OF THE INDIAN ENCHANTRESS.

  THE ENCHANTRESS COMES FORTH.

  ENCHANTRESS:

  He came like a dream in the dawn of life,

  He fled like a shadow before its noon;

  He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,

  And I wander and wane like the weary moon.

  O, sweet Echo, wake, 5

  And for my sake

  Make answer the while my heart shall break!

  But my heart has a music which Echo’s lips,

  Though tender and true, yet can answer not,

  And the shadow that moves in the soul’s eclipse 10

  Can return not the kiss by his now forgot;

  Sweet lips! he who hath

  On my desolate path

  Cast the darkness of absence, worse than death!

  [THE ENCHANTRESS MAKES HER SPELL: SHE IS ANSWERED BY A SPIRIT.]

  SPIRIT:

  Within the silent centre of the earth 15

  My mansion is; where I have lived insphered

  From the beginning, and around my sleep

  Have woven all the wondrous imagery

  Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world;

  Infinite depths of unknown elements 20

  Massed into one impenetrable mask;

  Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins

  Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron.

  And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven

  I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and clouds, 25

  And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns

  In the dark space of interstellar air.

  [A good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate’s fate, leads, in a mysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle. She is accompanied by a Youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection. The ensuing scene takes place between them on their arrival at the Isle. [MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1839.]]

  ANOTHER SCENE.

  INDIAN YOUTH AND LADY.

  INDIAN:

  And, if my grief should still be dearer to me

  Than all the pleasures in the world beside,

  Why would you lighten it? —

  LADY:

  I offer only 30

  That which I seek, some human sympathy

  In this mysterious island.

  INDIAN:

  Oh! my friend,

  My sister, my beloved! — What do I say?

  My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know whether

  I speak to thee or her.

  LADY:

  Peace, perturbed heart! 35

  I am to thee only as thou to mine,

  The passing wind which heals the brow at noon,

  And may strike cold into the breast at night,

  Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most,

  Or long soothe could it linger.

  INDIAN:

  But you said 40

  You also loved?

  LADY:

  Loved! Oh, I love. Methinks

  This word of love is fit for all the world,

  And that for gentle hearts another name

  Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns.

  I have loved.

  INDIAN:

  And thou lovest not? if so, 45

  Young as thou art thou canst afford to weep.

  LADY:

  Oh! would that I could claim exemption

  From all the bitterness of that sweet name.

  I loved, I love, and when I love no more

  Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair 50

  To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,

  The embodied vision of the brightest dream,

  Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;

  The shadow of his presence made my wo
rld

  A Paradise. All familiar things he touched, 55

  All common words he spoke, became to me

  Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.

  He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,

  As terrible and lovely as a tempest;

  He came, and went, and left me what I am. 60

  Alas! Why must I think how oft we two

  Have sate together near the river springs,

  Under the green pavilion which the willow

  Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,

  Strewn, by the nurslings that linger there, 65

  Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,

  While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,

  Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,

  Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own?

  The crane returned to her unfrozen haunt, 70

  And the false cuckoo bade the spray good morn;

  And on a wintry bough the widowed bird,

  Hid in the deepest night of ivy-leaves,

  Renewed the vigils of a sleepless sorrow.

  I, left like her, and leaving one like her, 75

  Alike abandoned and abandoning

  (Oh! unlike her in this!) the gentlest youth,

  Whose love had made my sorrows dear to him,

  Even as my sorrow made his love to me!

  INDIAN:

  One curse of Nature stamps in the same mould 80

  The features of the wretched; and they are

  As like as violet to violet,

  When memory, the ghost, their odours keeps

  Mid the cold relics of abandoned joy. —

  Proceed.

  LADY:

  He was a simple innocent boy. 85

  I loved him well, but not as he desired;

  Yet even thus he was content to be: —

  A short content, for I was —

  INDIAN [ASIDE]:

  God of Heaven!

  From such an islet, such a river-spring — !

  I dare not ask her if there stood upon it 90

  A pleasure-dome surmounted by a crescent,

  With steps to the blue water.

  [ALOUD.]

  It may be

  That Nature masks in life several copies

  Of the same lot, so that the sufferers

  May feel another’s sorrow as their own, 95

  And find in friendship what they lost in love.

  That cannot be: yet it is strange that we,

  From the same scene, by the same path to this

  Realm of abandonment — But speak! your breath —

  Your breath is like soft music, your words are 100

  The echoes of a voice which on my heart

  Sleeps like a melody of early days.

  But as you said —

  LADY:

  He was so awful, yet

  So beautiful in mystery and terror,

  Calming me as the loveliness of heaven 105

  Soothes the unquiet sea: — and yet not so,

  For he seemed stormy, and would often seem

  A quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds;

  For such his thoughts, and even his actions were;

  But he was not of them, nor they of him, 110

  But as they hid his splendour from the earth.

  Some said he was a man of blood and peril,

  And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips.

  More need was there I should be innocent,

  More need that I should be most true and kind, 115

  And much more need that there should be found one

  To share remorse and scorn and solitude,

  And all the ills that wait on those who do

  The tasks of ruin in the world of life.

  He fled, and I have followed him.

  INDIAN:

  Such a one 120

  Is he who was the winter of my peace.

  But, fairest stranger, when didst thou depart

  From the far hills where rise the springs of India?

  How didst thou pass the intervening sea?

  LADY:

  If I be sure I am not dreaming now, 125

  I should not doubt to say it was a dream.

  Methought a star came down from heaven,

  And rested mid the plants of India,

  Which I had given a shelter from the frost

  Within my chamber. There the meteor lay, 130

  Panting forth light among the leaves and flowers,

  As if it lived, and was outworn with speed;

  Or that it loved, and passion made the pulse

  Of its bright life throb like an anxious heart,

  Till it diffused itself; and all the chamber 135

  And walls seemed melted into emerald fire

  That burned not; in the midst of which appeared

  A spirit like a child, and laughed aloud

  A thrilling peal of such sweet merriment

  As made the blood tingle in my warm feet: 140

  Then bent over a vase, and murmuring

  Low, unintelligible melodies,

  Placed something in the mould like melon-seeds,

  And slowly faded, and in place of it

  A soft hand issued from the veil of fire, 145

  Holding a cup like a magnolia flower,

  And poured upon the earth within the vase

  The element with which it overflowed,

  Brighter than morning light, and purer than

  The water of the springs of Himalah. 150

  INDIAN:

  You waked not?

  LADY:

  Not until my dream became

  Like a child’s legend on the tideless sand.

  Which the first foam erases half, and half

  Leaves legible. At length I rose, and went,

  Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought 155

  To set new cuttings in the empty urns,

  And when I came to that beside the lattice,

  I saw two little dark-green leaves

  Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then

  I half-remembered my forgotten dream. 160

  And day by day, green as a gourd in June,

  The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew

  What plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed

  Like emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded

  With azure mail and streaks of woven silver; 165

  And all the sheaths that folded the dark buds

  Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel,

  Until the golden eye of the bright flower,

  Through the dark lashes of those veined lids,

  …disencumbered of their silent sleep, 170

  Gazed like a star into the morning light.

  Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw

  The pulses

  With which the purple velvet flower was fed

  To overflow, and like a poet’s heart 175

  Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment,

  Changed half the light to fragrance. It soon fell,

  And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit

  Left all its treasured beauty. Day by day

  I nursed the plant, and on the double flute 180

  Played to it on the sunny winter days

  Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain

  On silent leaves, and sang those words in which

  Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings;

  And I would send tales of forgotten love 185

  Late into the lone night, and sing wild songs

  Of maids deserted in the olden time,

  And weep like a soft cloud in April’s bosom

  Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant,

  So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come, 190

  And crept abroad into the moonlight air,

  And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon,

  The sun averted less his oblique beam.


  INDIAN:

  And the plant died not in the frost?

  LADY:

  It grew;

  And went out of the lattice which I left 195

  Half open for it, trailing its quaint spires

  Along the garden and across the lawn,

  And down the slope of moss and through the tufts

  Of wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o’ergrown

  With simple lichens, and old hoary stones, 200

  On to the margin of the glassy pool,

  Even to a nook of unblown violets

  And lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn,

  Under a pine with ivy overgrown.

  And theme its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard 205

  Under the shadows; but when Spring indeed

  Came to unswathe her infants, and the lilies

  Peeped from their bright green masks to wonder at

  This shape of autumn couched in their recess,

  Then it dilated, and it grew until 210

  One half lay floating on the fountain wave,

  Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies,

  Kept time

  Among the snowy water-lily buds.

  Its shape was such as summer melody 215

  Of the south wind in spicy vales might give

  To some light cloud bound from the golden dawn

  To fairy isles of evening, and it seemed

  In hue and form that it had been a mirror

  Of all the hues and forms around it and 220

  Upon it pictured by the sunny beams

  Which, from the bright vibrations of the pool,

  Were thrown upon the rafters and the roof

  Of boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stems

  Of the dark sylvan temple, and reflections 225

  Of every infant flower and star of moss

  And veined leaf in the azure odorous air.

  And thus it lay in the Elysian calm

  Of its own beauty, floating on the line

  Which, like a film in purest space, divided 230

  The heaven beneath the water from the heaven

  Above the clouds; and every day I went

  Watching its growth and wondering;

  And as the day grew hot, methought I saw

  A glassy vapour dancing on the pool, 235

  And on it little quaint and filmy shapes.

  With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall,

  Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments.

  …

  O friend, sleep was a veil uplift from Heaven —

  As if Heaven dawned upon the world of dream — 240

  When darkness rose on the extinguished day

  Out of the eastern wilderness.