Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnaclesPoint from one shrine like pyramids of fire,Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, _15Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,Around whose lessening and invisible heightGather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, _20Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,And mingling with the still night and mute skyIts awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild _25And terrorless as this serenest night:Here could I hope, like some inquiring childSporting on graves, that death did hide from human sightSweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleepThat loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. _30
***
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816. See Editor’s Note.]
Oh! there are spirits of the air,And genii of the evening breeze,And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fairAs star-beams among twilight trees:—Such lovely ministers to meet _5Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,And moonlight seas, that are the voiceOf these inexplicable things,Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice _10When they did answer thee; but theyCast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyesBeams that were never meant for thine,Another’s wealth:—tame sacrificeTo a fond faith! still dost thou pine? _15Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hopeOn the false earth’s inconstancy? _20Did thine own mind afford no scopeOf love, or moving thoughts to thee?That natural scenes or human smilesCould steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled _25Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;The glory of the moon is dead;Night’s ghosts and dreams have now departed;Thine own soul still is true to thee,But changed to a foul fiend through misery. _30
This fiend, whose ghastly presence everBeside thee like thy shadow hangs,Dream not to chase;—the mad endeavourWould scourge thee to severer pangs.Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. _35
NOTES: _1 of 1816; in 1839. _8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.
***
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to knowThat things depart which never may return:Childhood and youth, friendship and love’s first glow,Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.These common woes I feel. One loss is mine _5Which thou too feel’st, yet I alone deplore.Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shineOn some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar:Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stoodAbove the blind and battling multitude: _10In honoured poverty thy voice did weaveSongs consecrate to truth and liberty,—Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
***
[Published with “Alastor”, 1816.]
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groanTo think that a most unambitious slave,Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the graveOf Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throneWhere it had stood even now: thou didst prefer _5A frail and bloody pomp which Time has sweptIn fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,And stifled thee, their minister. I know _10Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,That Virtue owns a more eternal foeThan Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
***
[Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, where it is headed“November, 1815”. Reprinted in the “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. SeeEditor’s Note.]
1.The cold earth slept below,Above the cold sky shone;And all around, with a chilling sound,From caves of ice and fields of snow,The breath of night like death did flow _5Beneath the sinking moon.
2.The wintry hedge was black,The green grass was not seen,The birds did rest on the bare thorn’s breast,Whose roots, beside the pathway track, _10Had bound their folds o’er many a crackWhich the frost had made between.
3.Thine eyes glowed in the glareOf the moon’s dying light;As a fen-fire’s beam on a sluggish stream _15Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,That shook in the wind of night.
4.The moon made thy lips pale, beloved—The wind made thy bosom chill— _20The night did shed on thy dear headIts frozen dew, and thou didst lieWhere the bitter breath of the naked skyMight visit thee at will.
NOTE: _17 raven 1823; tangled 1824.
***
The remainder of Shelley’s Poems will be arranged in the order in which they were written. Of course, mistakes will occur in placing some of the shorter ones; for, as I have said, many of these were thrown aside, and I never saw them till I had the misery of looking over his writings after the hand that traced them was dust; and some were in the hands of others, and I never saw them till now. The subjects of the poems are often to me an unerring guide; but on other occasions I can only guess, by finding them in the pages of the same manuscript book that contains poems with the date of whose composition I am fully conversant. In the present arrangement all his poetical translations will be placed together at the end.
The loss of his early papers prevents my being able to give any of the poetry of his boyhood. Of the few I give as “Early Poems”, the greater part were published with “Alastor”; some of them were written previously, some at the same period. The poem beginning ‘Oh, there are spirits in the air’ was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth. The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames in 1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to its source. He never spent a season more tranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe pulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near Windsor Forest; and his life was spent under its shades or on the water, meditating subjects for verse. Hitherto, he had chiefly aimed at extending his political doctrines, and attempted so to do by appeals in prose essays to the people, exhorting them to claim their rights; but he had now begun to feel that the time for action was not ripe in England, and that the pen was the only instrument wherewith to prepare the way for better things.
In the scanty journals kept during those years I find a record of the books that Shelley read during several years. During the years of 1814 and 1815 the list is extensive. It includes, in Greek, Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus, and Diogenes Laertius. In Latin, Petronius, Suetonius, some of the works of Cicero, a large proportion of those of Seneca and Livy. In English, Milton’s poems, Wordsworth’s “Excursion”, Southey’s “Madoc” and “Thalaba”, Locke “On the Human Understanding”, Bacon’s “Novum Organum”. In Italian, Ariosto, Tasso, and Alfieri. In French, the “Reveries d’un Solitaire” of Rousseau. To these may be added several modern books of travel. He read few novels.
***
[Written at Bishopsgate, 1816 (spring). Published in full in the“Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Lines 9-20, and 28-42, appeared in Hunt’s“Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823, under the titles, respectively, of“Sunset. From an Unpublished Poem”, And “Grief. A Fragment”.]
There late was One within whose subtle being,As light and wind within some delicate cloudThat fades amid the blue noon’s burning sky,Genius and death contended. None may knowThe sweetness of the joy which made his breath _5Fail, like the trances of the summer air,When, with the Lady of his love, who thenFirst knew the unreserve of mingled being,He walked along the pathway of a fieldWhich to the east a hoar wood shadowed o’er, _10But to the west was open to the sky.There now the sun had sunk, but lines of goldHung on the ashen clouds, and on the pointsOf the far level grass and nodding flowersAnd the old dandelion’s hoary beard, _15And, mingled with the shades of twilight, layOn the brown massy woods—and in the eastThe broad and burning moon lingeringly roseBetween the black trunks of the crowded trees,While the faint stars were gathering overhead.— _20‘Is it not strange, Isabel,’ said the youth,‘I never saw the sun? We will walk hereTo-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.’
That night the youth and lady mingled layIn love and sleep—but when the morning came _25The lady found her lover dead and cold.Let none believe that God in mercy gaveThat stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild,But year by year lived on—in truth I thinkHer gentleness and patience and sad smiles, _30And that she did not die, but lived to tendHer aged father, were a kind of madness,If madness ’tis to be unlike the world.For but to see her were to read the taleWoven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts _35Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;—Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan:Her eyelashes were worn away with tears,Her lips and cheeks were like things dead—so pale;Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins _40And weak articulations might be seenDay’s ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead selfWhich one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day,Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
‘Inheritor of more than earth can give, _45Passionless calm and silence unreproved,Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,And are the uncomplaining things they seem,Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!’ _50This was the only moan she ever made.
NOTES: _4 death 1839; youth 1824. _22 sun? We will walk 1824; sunrise? We will wake cj. Forman. _37 Her eyes…wan Hunt, 1823; omitted 1824, 1839. _38 worn 1824; torn 1839.
***
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt’s “Examiner”, January 19, 1817, and with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819.]
1.The awful shadow of some unseen PowerFloats though unseen among us,—visitingThis various world with as inconstant wingAs summer winds that creep from flower to flower,—Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, _5It visits with inconstant glanceEach human heart and countenance;Like hues and harmonies of evening,—Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—Like memory of music fled,— _10Like aught that for its grace may beDear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2.Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrateWith thine own hues all thou dost shine uponOf human thought or form,—where art thou gone? _15Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?Ask why the sunlight not for everWeaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river,Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, _20Why fear and dream and death and birthCast on the daylight of this earthSuch gloom,—why man has such a scopeFor love and hate, despondency and hope?
3.No voice from some sublimer world hath ever _25To sage or poet these responses given—Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven.Remain the records of their vain endeavour,Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,From all we hear and all we see, _30Doubt, chance, and mutability.Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven,Or music by the night-wind sentThrough strings of some still instrument,Or moonlight on a midnight stream, _35Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.
4.Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds departAnd come, for some uncertain moments lent.Man were immortal, and omnipotent,Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, _40Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.Thou messenger of sympathies,That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes—Thou—that to human thought art nourishment,Like darkness to a dying flame! _45Depart not as thy shadow cameDepart not—lest the grave should be,Like life and fear, a dark reality.
5.While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and spedThrough many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, _50And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuingHopes of high talk with the departed dead.I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;I was not heard—I saw them not—When musing deeply on the lot _55Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooingAll vital things that wake to bringNews of birds and blossoming,—Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! _60
6.I vowed that I would dedicate my powersTo thee and thine—have I not kept the vow?With beating heart and streaming eyes, even nowI call the phantoms of a thousand hoursEach from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers _65Of studious zeal or love’s delightOutwatched with me the envious night—They know that never joy illumed my browUnlinked with hope that thou wouldst freeThis world from its dark slavery, _70That thou—O awful LOVELINESS,Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.
7.The day becomes more solemn and sereneWhen noon is past—there is a harmonyIn autumn, and a lustre in its sky, _75Which through the summer is not heard or seen,As if it could not be, as if it had not been!Thus let thy power, which like the truthOf nature on my passive youthDescended, to my onward life supply _80Its calm—to one who worships thee,And every form containing thee,Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bindTo fear himself, and love all human kind.
NOTES: _2 among 1819; amongst 1817. _14 dost 1819; doth 1817. _21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript. _37-_48 omitted Boscombe manuscript. _44 art 1817; are 1819. _76 or 1819; nor 1839.
***
[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the end of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour” published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett.]
1.The everlasting universe of thingsFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—Now lending splendour, where from secret springsThe source of human thought its tribute brings _5Of waters,—with a sound but half its own,Such as a feeble brook will oft assumeIn the wild woods, among the mountains lone,Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river _10Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
2.Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale,Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sailFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, _15Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes downFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,Bursting through these dark mountains like the flameOf lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie,Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, _20Children of elder time, in whose devotionThe chainless winds still come and ever cameTo drink their odours, and their mighty swingingTo hear—an old and solemn harmony;Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep _25Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veilRobes some unsculptured image; the strange sleepWhich when the voices of the desert failWraps all in its own deep eternity;—Thy caverns echoing to the Arve’s commotion, _30A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,Thou art the path of that unresting sound—Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on theeI seem as in a trance sublime and strange _35To muse on my own separate fantasy,My own, my human mind, which passivelyNow renders and receives fast influencings,Holding an unremitting interchangeWith the clear universe of things around; _40One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wingsNow float above thy darkness, and now restWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,In the still cave of the witch Poesy,Seeking among the shadows that pass by _45Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,Some phantom, some faint image; till the breastFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
3.Some say that gleams of a remoter worldVisit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber, _50And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumberOf those who wake and live.—I look on high;Has some unknown omnipotence unfurledThe veil of life and death? or do I lieIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleep _55Spread far around and inaccessiblyIts circles? For the very spirit fails,Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steepThat vanishes among the viewless gales!Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, _60Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—Its subject mountains their unearthly formsPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales betweenOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread _65And wind among the accumulated steeps;A desert peopled by the storms alone,Save when the eagle brings some hunter’s bone,And the wolf tracts her there—how hideouslyIts shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, _70Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the sceneWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her youngRuin? Were these their toys? or did a seaOf fire envelope once this silent snow?None can reply—all seems eternal now. _75The wilderness has a mysterious tongueWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,So solemn, so serene, that man may be,But for such faith, with nature reconciled;Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal _80Large codes of fraud and woe; not understoodBy all, but which the wise, and great, and goodInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
4.The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,Ocean, and all the living things that dwell _85Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,The torpor of the year when feeble dreamsVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleepHolds every future leaf and flower;—the bound _90With which from that detested trance they leap;The works and ways of man, their death and birth,And that of him and all that his may be;All things that move and breathe with toil and soundAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. _95Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,Remote, serene, and inaccessible:And THIS, the naked countenance of earth,On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountainsTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep _100Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice,Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal powerHave piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,A city of death, distinct with many a tower _105And wall impregnable of beaming ice.Yet not a city, but a flood of ruinIs there, that from the boundaries of the skyRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewingIts destined path, or in the mangled soil _110Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn downFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrownThe limits of the dead and living world,Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-placeOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; _115Their food and their retreat for ever gone,So much of life and joy is lost. The raceOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwellingVanish, like smoke before the tempest’s stream,And their place is not known. Below, vast caves _120Shine in the rushing torrents’ restless gleam,Which from those secret chasms in tumult wellingMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,The breath and blood of distant lands, for everRolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
5.Mont Blanc yet gleams on high—the power is there,The still and solemn power of many sights,And many sounds, and much of life and death.In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130In the lone glare of day, the snows descendUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,Or the star-beams dart through them:—Winds contendSilently there, and heap the snow with breath _135Rapid and strong, but silently! Its homeThe voiceless lightning in these solitudesKeeps innocently, and like vapour broodsOver the snow. The secret strength of thingsWhich governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,If to the human mind’s imaginingsSilence and solitude were vacancy?
July 23, 1816.
NOTES: _15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817; cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839. _20 Thy 1824; The 1839. _53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’). _56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839. _69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript. _79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript. _108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti (cf. lines 102, 106). _121 torrents’]torrent’s 1817, 1824, 1839.
***
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
There is a voice, not understood by all,Sent from these desert-caves. It is the roarOf the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call,Plunging into the vale—it is the blastDescending on the pines—the torrents pour… _5
***
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,The least of which wronged Memory ever makesBitterer than all thine unremembered tears.
***
[Published by Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
A shovel of his ashes tookFrom the hearth’s obscurest nook,Muttering mysteries as she went.Helen and Henry knew that GrannyWas as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5And so they followed hard—But Helen clung to her brother’s arm,And her own spasm made her shake.
***
Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled “The Sunset” was written in the spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopsgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” was conceived during his voyage round the lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the “Nouvelle Heloise” for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley’s own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful.
“Mont Blanc” was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, and Letters from Switzerland”: ‘The poem entitled “Mont Blanc” is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.’
This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the “Prometheus” of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch’s “Lives”, and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny’s “Letters”, the “Annals” and “Germany” of Tacitus. In French, the “History of the French Revolution” by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne’s “Essays”, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke’s “Essay”, “Political Justice”, and Coleridge’s “Lay Sermon”, form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, “Paradise Lost”, Spenser’s “Faery Queen”, and “Don Quixote”.
***
[Composed at Marlow, 1817. Published in Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, and reprinted in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!I know the secrets of the air,And things are lost in the glare of day,Which I can make the sleeping see, _5If they will put their trust in me.
2.And thou shalt know of things unknown,If thou wilt let me rest betweenThe veiny lids, whose fringe is thrownOver thine eyes so dark and sheen: _10And half in hope, and half in fright,The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
3.At first all deadly shapes were drivenTumultuously across her sleep,And o’er the vast cope of bending heaven _15All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;And the Lady ever looked to spyIf the golden sun shone forth on high.
4.And as towards the east she turned,She saw aloft in the morning air, _20Which now with hues of sunrise burned,A great black Anchor rising there;And wherever the Lady turned her eyes,It hung before her in the skies.
5.The sky was blue as the summer sea, _25The depths were cloudless overhead,The air was calm as it could be,There was no sight or sound of dread,But that black Anchor floating stillOver the piny eastern hill. _30
6.The Lady grew sick with a weight of fearTo see that Anchor ever hanging,And veiled her eyes; she then did hearThe sound as of a dim low clanging,And looked abroad if she might know _35Was it aught else, or but the flowOf the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
7.There was a mist in the sunless air,Which shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock,But the very weeds that blossomed there _40Were moveless, and each mighty rockStood on its basis steadfastly;The Anchor was seen no more on high.
8.But piled around, with summits hidIn lines of cloud at intervals, _45Stood many a mountain pyramidAmong whose everlasting wallsTwo mighty cities shone, and everThrough the red mist their domes did quiver.
9.On two dread mountains, from whose crest, _50Might seem, the eagle, for her brood,Would ne’er have hung her dizzy nest,Those tower-encircled cities stood.A vision strange such towers to see,Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously, _55Where human art could never be.
10.And columns framed of marble white,And giant fanes, dome over domePiled, and triumphant gates, all brightWith workmanship, which could not come _60From touch of mortal instrument,Shot o’er the vales, or lustre lentFrom its own shapes magnificent.
11.But still the Lady heard that clangFilling the wide air far away; _65And still the mist whose light did hangAmong the mountains shook alway,So that the Lady’s heart beat fast,As half in joy, and half aghast,On those high domes her look she cast. _70
12.Sudden, from out that city sprungA light that made the earth grow red;Two flames that each with quivering tongueLicked its high domes, and overheadAmong those mighty towers and fanes _75Dropped fire, as a volcano rainsIts sulphurous ruin on the plains.
13.And hark! a rush as if the deepHad burst its bonds; she looked behindAnd saw over the western steep _80A raging flood descend, and windThrough that wide vale; she felt no fear,But said within herself, ’Tis clearThese towers are Nature’s own, and sheTo save them has sent forth the sea. _85
14.And now those raging billows cameWhere that fair Lady sate, and sheWas borne towards the showering flameBy the wild waves heaped tumultuously.And, on a little plank, the flow _90Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.
15.The flames were fiercely vomitedFrom every tower and every dome,And dreary light did widely shedO’er that vast flood’s suspended foam, _95Beneath the smoke which hung its nightOn the stained cope of heaven’s light.
16.The plank whereon that Lady sateWas driven through the chasms, about and about,Between the peaks so desolate _100Of the drowning mountains, in and out,As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails—While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
17.At last her plank an eddy crossed,And bore her to the city’s wall, _105Which now the flood had reached almost;It might the stoutest heart appalTo hear the fire roar and hissThrough the domes of those mighty palaces.
18.The eddy whirled her round and round _110Before a gorgeous gate, which stoodPiercing the clouds of smoke which boundIts aery arch with light like blood;She looked on that gate of marble clear,With wonder that extinguished fear. _115
19.For it was filled with sculptures rarest,Of forms most beautiful and strange,Like nothing human, but the fairestOf winged shapes, whose legions rangeThroughout the sleep of those that are, _120Like this same Lady, good and fair.
20.And as she looked, still lovelier grewThose marble forms;—the sculptor sureWas a strong spirit, and the hueOf his own mind did there endure _125After the touch, whose power had braidedSuch grace, was in some sad change faded.
21.She looked, the flames were dim, the floodGrew tranquil as a woodland riverWinding through hills in solitude; _130Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver,And their fair limbs to float in motion,Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
22.And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,When suddenly the mountains cracked, _135And through the chasm the flood did breakWith an earth-uplifting cataract:The statues gave a joyous scream,And on its wings the pale thin DreamLifted the Lady from the stream. _140
23.The dizzy flight of that phantom paleWaked the fair Lady from her sleep,And she arose, while from the veilOf her dark eyes the Dream did creep,And she walked about as one who knew _145That sleep has sights as clear and trueAs any waking eyes can view.
NOTES: _18 golden 1819; gold 1824, 1839. _28 or 1824; nor 1839. _62 or]a cj. Rossetti. _63 its]their cj. Rossetti. _92 flames cj. Rossetti; waves 1819, 1824, 1839. _101 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839. _106 flood]flames cj. James Thomson (‘B.V.’). _120 that 1819, 1824; who 1839. _135 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from which Mr. Locock [“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 60-62] has, with patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock’s restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley’s obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light of a final recension.]
1.Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn!In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burnBetween thy lips, are laid to sleep; _5Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,And from thy touch like fire doth leap.Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet.Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
2.A breathless awe, like the swift change _10Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.The cope of heaven seems rent and clovenBy the enchantment of thy strain, _15And on my shoulders wings are woven,To follow its sublime careerBeyond the mighty moons that waneUpon the verge of Nature’s utmost sphere,Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear. _20
3.Her voice is hovering o’er my soul—it lingersO’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,The blood and life within those snowy fingersTeach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.My brain is wild, my breath comes quick— _25The blood is listening in my frame,And thronging shadows, fast and thick,Fall on my overflowing eyes;My heart is quivering like a flame;As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, _30I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
4.I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy songFlows on, and fills all things with melody.—Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, _35On which, like one in trance upborne,Secure o’er rocks and waves I sweep,Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.Now ’tis the breath of summer night,Which when the starry waters sleep,Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, _40Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.
1.Cease, cease—for such wild lessons madmen learnThus to be lost, and thus to sink and diePerchance were death indeed!—Constantia turnIn thy dark eyes a power like light doth lieEven though the sounds its voice that were _5Between [thy] lips are laid to sleep:Within thy breath, and on thy hairLike odour, it is [lingering] yetAnd from thy touch like fire doth leap—Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet— _10Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.
2.[A deep and] breathless awe like the swift changeOf dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbersWild sweet yet incommunicably strangeThou breathest now in fast ascending numbers… _15
***
TO CONSTANTIA. [Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and printed by her in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. A copy exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]
1.The rose that drinks the fountain dewIn the pleasant air of noon,Grows pale and blue with altered hue—In the gaze of the nightly moon;For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, _5Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
2.Such is my heart—roses are fair,And that at best a withered blossom;But thy false care did idly wearIts withered leaves in a faithless bosom; _10And fed with love, like air and dew,Its growth—
NOTES: _1 The rose]The red Rose B. _2 pleasant]fragrant B. _6 her omitted B.
***
[Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has revised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock (“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.]
My spirit like a charmed bark doth swimUpon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,Far far away into the regions dim
Of rapture—as a boat, with swift sails wingingIts way adown some many-winding river, _5Speeds through dark forests o’er the waters swinging…
NOTES: _3 Far far away B.; Far away 1839. _6 Speeds…swinging B.; omitted 1839.
***
[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
Silver key of the fountain of tears,Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;Softest grave of a thousand fears,Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,Is laid asleep in flowers. _5
***
[Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
No, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love.’Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self,Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.
***
[Published in 1882 (“Poetical Works of P. B. S.”) by Mr. H. BuxtonForman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]
Mighty eagle! thou that soarestO’er the misty mountain forest,And amid the light of morningLike a cloud of glory hiest,And when night descends defiest _5The embattled tempests’ warning!
***
[Published in part (5-9, 14) by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition (without title); in full 2nd edition (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley’s hand are extant: two—Leigh Hunt’s and Ch. Cowden Clarke’s—described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry [“Poetical Works”, Centenary Edition, 3 193-6]. One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley’s autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley’s hand is in the Harvard manuscript book.]
1.Thy country’s curse is on thee, darkest crestOf that foul, knotted, many-headed wormWhich rends our Mother’s bosom—Priestly Pest!Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
2.Thy country’s curse is on thee! Justice sold, _5Truth trampled, Nature’s landmarks overthrown,And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction’s throne.
3.And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye standsWatching the beck of Mutability _10Delays to execute her high commands,And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,
4.Oh, let a father’s curse be on thy soul,And let a daughter’s hope be on thy tomb;Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl _15To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.
5.I curse thee by a parent’s outraged love,By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; _20
6.By those infantine smiles of happy light,Which were a fire within a stranger’s hearth,Quenched even when kindled, in untimely nightHiding the promise of a lovely birth:
7.By those unpractised accents of young speech, _25Which he who is a father thought to frameTo gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach—THOU strike the lyre of mind!—oh, grief and shame!
8.By all the happy see in children’s growth—That undeveloped flower of budding years— _30Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears-
9.By all the days, under an hireling’s care,Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,—O wretched ye if ever any were,— _35Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
10.By the false cant which on their innocent lipsMust hang like poison on an opening bloom,By the dark creeds which cover with eclipseTheir pathway from the cradle to the tomb— _40
11.By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;By all the grief, the madness, and the guiltOf thine impostures, which must be their error—That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—
12.By thy complicity with lust and hate— _45Thy thirst for tears—thy hunger after gold—The ready frauds which ever on thee wait—The servile arts in which thou hast grown old—
13.By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile—By all the arts and snares of thy black den, _50And—for thou canst outweep the crocodile—By thy false tears—those millstones braining men—
14.By all the hate which checks a father’s love—By all the scorn which kills a father’s care—By those most impious hands which dared remove _55Nature’s high bounds—by thee—and by despair—
15.Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,And cry, ‘My children are no longer mine—The blood within those veins may be mine own,But—Tyrant—their polluted souls are thine;— _60
16.I curse thee—though I hate thee not.—O slave!If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming HellOf which thou art a daemon, on thy graveThis curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!
NOTES: _9 Angel which aye cancelled by Shelley for Fate which ever Fa. _24 promise of a 1839, 2nd edition; promises of 1839, 1st edition. _27 lore]love Fa. _32 and saddest]the saddest Fa. _36 yet not fatherless! cancelled by Shelley for why not fatherless? Fa. _41-_44 By…built ‘crossed by Shelley and marked dele by Mrs. Shelley’ (Woodberry) Fa. _50 arts and snares 1839, 1st edition; snares and arts Harvard Coll. manuscript; snares and nets Fa.; acts and snares 1839, 2nd edition. _59 those]their Fa.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley (1, 5, 6), “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; in full, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. A transcript is extant in Mrs. Shelley’s hand.]
1.The billows on the beach are leaping around it,The bark is weak and frail,The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound itDarkly strew the gale.Come with me, thou delightful child,Come with me, though the wave is wild, _5And the winds are loose, we must not stay,Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.
2.They have taken thy brother and sister dear,They have made them unfit for thee; _10They have withered the smile and dried the tearWhich should have been sacred to me.To a blighting faith and a cause of crimeThey have bound them slaves in youthly prime,And they will curse my name and thee _15Because we fearless are and free.
3.Come thou, beloved as thou art;Another sleepeth stillNear thy sweet mother’s anxious heart,Which thou with joy shalt fill, _20With fairest smiles of wonder thrownOn that which is indeed our own,And which in distant lands will beThe dearest playmate unto thee.
4.Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, _25Or the priests of the evil faith;They stand on the brink of that raging river,Whose waves they have tainted with death.It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,Around them it foams and rages and swells; _30And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
5.Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!The rocking of the boat thou fearest,And the cold spray and the clamour wild?— _35There, sit between us two, thou dearest—Me and thy mother—well we knowThe storm at which thou tremblest so,With all its dark and hungry graves,Less cruel than the savage slaves _40Who hunt us o’er these sheltering waves.
6.This hour will in thy memoryBe a dream of days forgotten long.We soon shall dwell by the azure seaOf serene and golden Italy,Or Greece, the Mother of the free; _45And I will teach thine infant tongueTo call upon those heroes oldIn their own language, and will mouldThy growing spirit in the flameOf Grecian lore, that by such name _50A patriot’s birthright thou mayst claim!
NOTES: _1 on the beach omitted 1839, 1st edition. _8 of the law 1839, 1st edition; of law 1839, 2nd edition. _14 prime transcript; time editions 1839. _16 fearless are editions 1839; are fearless transcript. _20 shalt transcript; wilt editions 1839. _25-_32 Fear…eternity omitted, transcript. See “Rosalind and Helen”, lines 894-901. _33 and transcript; omitted editions 1839. _41 us transcript, 1839, 1st edition; thee 1839, 2nd edition. _42 will in transcript, 1839, 2nd edition; will sometime in 1839, 1st edition. _43 long transcript; omitted editions 1839. _48 those transcript, 1839, 1st edition; their 1839, 2nd edition.
***
[Published in Dr. Garnett’s “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
1.The world is now our dwelling-place;Where’er the earth one fading traceOf what was great and free does keep,That is our home!…Mild thoughts of man’s ungentle race _5Shall our contented exile reap;For who that in some happy placeHis own free thoughts can freely chaseBy woods and waves can clothe his faceIn cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. _10
2.This lament,The memory of thy grievous wrongWill fade…But genius is omnipotentTo hallow… _15
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in “PoeticalWorks”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Her voice did quiver as we parted,Yet knew I not that heart was brokenFrom which it came, and I departedHeeding not the words then spoken.Misery—O Misery, _5This world is all too wide for thee.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date ‘November 5th, 1817,’ in“Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.That time is dead for ever, child!Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!We look on the pastAnd stare aghastAt the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, _5Of hopes which thou and I beguiledTo death on life’s dark river.
2.The stream we gazed on then rolled by;Its waves are unreturning;But we yet stand _10In a lone land,Like tombs to mark the memoryOf hopes and fears, which fade and fleeIn the light of life’s dim morning.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.They die—the dead return not—MiserySits near an open grave and calls them over,A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye—They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,Which he so feebly calls—they all are gone— _5Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,This most familiar scene, my pain—These tombs—alone remain.
2.Misery, my sweetest friend—oh, weep no more!Thou wilt not be consoled—I wonder not! _10For I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s doorWatch the calm sunset with them, and this spotWas even as bright and calm, but transitory,And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;This most familiar scene, my pain— _15These tombs—alone remain.
NOTE: _5 calls editions 1839; called 1824.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
1.Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,Last of the Romans, though thy memory claimFrom Brutus his own glory—and on theeRests the full splendour of his sacred fame:Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail _5Amid his cowering senate with thy name,Though thou and he were great—it will availTo thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.
2.‘Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,Abjure such envious fame—great Otho died _10Like thee—he sanctified his country’s steel,At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,In his own blood—a deed it was to bringTears from all men—though full of gentle pride,Such pride as from impetuous love may spring, _15That will not be refused its offering.
NOTE: _13 bring cj. Garnett; buy 1839, 1st edition; wring cj. Rossetti.
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862,—where, however, only the fragment numbered 2 is assigned to “Otho”. Forman (1876) connects all three fragments with that projected poem.]
1.Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,Have ever grieved that man should be the spoilOf his own weakness, and with earnest mindFed hopes of its redemption; these recur _5Chastened by deathful victory now, and findFoundations in this foulest age, and stirMe whom they cheer to be their minister.
2.Dark is the realm of grief: but human thingsThose may not know who cannot weep for them. _10
…
3.Once more descendThe shadows of my soul upon mankind,For to those hearts with which they never blend,Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mindFrom the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, _15Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
…
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
O that a chariot of cloud were mine!Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,When the moon over the ocean’s lineIs spreading the locks of her bright gray hair.O that a chariot of cloud were mine! _5I would sail on the waves of the billowy windTo the mountain peak and the rocky lake,And the…
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
For me, my friend, if not that tears did trembleIn my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fastWith feelings which make rapture pain resemble,Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast,I thank thee—let the tyrant keep _5His chains and tears, yea, let him weepWith rage to see thee freshly risen,Like strength from slumber, from the prison,In which he vainly hoped the soul to bindWhich on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. _10
NOTE:For the metre see Fragment: “A Gentle Story” (A.C. Bradley.)
***
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
A golden-winged Angel stoodBefore the Eternal Judgement-seat:His looks were wild, and Devils’ bloodStained his dainty hands and feet.The Father and the Son _5Knew that strife was now begun.They knew that Satan had broken his chain,And with millions of daemons in his train,Was ranging over the world again.Before the Angel had told his tale, _10A sweet and a creeping soundLike the rushing of wings was heard around;And suddenly the lamps grew pale—The lamps, before the Archangels seven,That burn continually in Heaven. _15
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63.]
To thirst and find no fill—to wail and wanderWith short unsteady steps—to pause and ponder—To feel the blood run through the veins and tingleWhere busy thought and blind sensation mingle;To nurse the image of unfelt caresses _5Till dim imagination just possessesThe half-created shadow, then all the nightSick…
NOTES: _2 unsteady B.; uneasy 1839, 1st edition. _7, _8 then…Sick B.; wanting, 1839, 1st edition.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Wealth and dominion fade into the massOf the great sea of human right and wrong,When once from our possession they must pass;But love, though misdirected, is amongThe things which are immortal, and surpass _5All that frail stuff which will be—or which was.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,The verse that would invest them melts awayLike moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl! _5
***
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.]
A hater he came and sat by a ditch,And he took an old cracked lute;And he sang a song which was more of a screech’Gainst a woman that was a brute.
***
[Published by Hunt in “The Liberal”, No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in“Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]
1.Honey from silkworms who can gather,Or silk from the yellow bee?The grass may grow in winter weatherAs soon as hate in me.
2.Hate men who cant, and men who pray, _5And men who rail like thee;An equal passion to repayThey are not coy like me.
3.Or seek some slave of power and goldTo be thy dear heart’s mate; _10Thy love will move that bigot coldSooner than me, thy hate.
4.A passion like the one I proveCannot divided be;I hate thy want of truth and love— _15How should I then hate thee?
***
[Published by Hunt in “The Examiner”, January, 1818. Reprinted with“Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelleymanuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]
I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, _5Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:And on the pedestal these words appear:‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: _10Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.
NOTE: _9 these words appear]this legend clear B.
***
The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The “Revolt of Islam”, written and printed, was a great effort—“Rosalind and Helen” was begun—and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.
In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.
He projected also translating the “Hymns” of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already published in the “Posthumous Poems”. His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the “Hymns” of Homer and the “Iliad”, he read the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the “Symposium” of Plato, and Arrian’s “Historia Indica”. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings I find also mentioned the “Faerie Queen”; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore and Byron.