[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flowThrough public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,But leech-like to their fainting country cling, _5Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—An army, which liberticide and preyMakes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,—Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; _10Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;A Senate,—Time’s worst statute, unrepealed,—Are graves from which a glorious Phantom mayBurst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
***
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
Arise, arise, arise!There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;Be your wounds like eyesTo weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.What other grief were it just to pay? _5Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;Who said they were slain on the battle day?
Awaken, awaken, awaken!The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;Be the cold chains shaken _10To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:Their bones in the grave will start and move,When they hear the voices of those they love,Most loud in the holy combat above.
Wave, wave high the banner! _15When Freedom is riding to conquest by:Though the slaves that fan herBe Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.And ye who attend her imperial car,Lift not your hands in the banded war, _20But in her defence whose children ye are.
Glory, glory, glory,To those who have greatly suffered and done!Never name in storyWas greater than that which ye shall have won. _25Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrownRide ye, more victorious, over your own.
Bind, bind every browWith crownals of violet, ivy, and pine: _30Hide the blood-stains nowWith hues which sweet Nature has made divine:Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:But let not the pansy among them be;Ye were injured, and that means memory. _35
***
[Published in “The Times” (Rossetti).]
Gather, O gather,Foeman and friend in love and peace!Waves sleep togetherWhen the blasts that called them to battle, cease.For fangless Power grown tame and mild _5Is at play with Freedom’s fearless child—The dove and the serpent reconciled!
***
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Florence, December, 1819’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., page 39.]
FIRST SPIRIT:Palace-roof of cloudless nights!Paradise of golden lights!Deep, immeasurable, vast,Which art now, and which wert thenOf the Present and the Past, _5Of the eternal Where and When,Presence-chamber, temple, home,Ever-canopying dome,Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee, _10Earth, and all earth’s company;Living globes which ever throngThy deep chasms and wildernesses;And green worlds that glide along;And swift stars with flashing tresses; _15And icy moons most cold and bright,And mighty suns beyond the night,Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,Heaven! for thou art the abode _20Of that Power which is the glassWherein man his nature sees.Generations as they passWorship thee with bended knees.Their unremaining gods and they _25Like a river roll away:Thou remainest such—alway!—
SECOND SPIRIT:Thou art but the mind’s first chamber,Round which its young fancies clamber,Like weak insects in a cave, _30Lighted up by stalactites;But the portal of the grave,Where a world of new delightsWill make thy best glories seemBut a dim and noonday gleam _35From the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT:Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scornAt your presumption, atom-born!What is Heaven? and what are yeWho its brief expanse inherit? _40What are suns and spheres which fleeWith the instinct of that SpiritOf which ye are but a part?Drops which Nature’s mighty heartDrives through thinnest veins! Depart! _45
What is Heaven? a globe of dew,Filling in the morning newSome eyed flower whose young leaves wakenOn an unimagined world:Constellated suns unshaken, _50Orbits measureless, are furledIn that frail and fading sphere,With ten millions gathered there,To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
***
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]
The [living frame which sustains my soul]Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]Down through the lampless deep of songI am drawn and driven along—
When a Nation screams aloud _5Like an eagle from the cloudWhen a…
…
When the night…
…
Watch the look askance and old—See neglect, and falsehood fold… _10
***
(This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
1.O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, _5Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,Each like a corpse within its grave, untilThine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill _10(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
2.Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, _15Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spreadOn the blue surface of thine aery surge,Like the bright hair uplifted from the head _20
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim vergeOf the horizon to the zenith’s height,The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre, _25Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphereBlack rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
3.Thou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay, _30Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers _35So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ThouFor whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far belowThe sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wearThe sapless foliage of the ocean, know _40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
4.If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share _45
The impulse of thy strength, only less freeThan thou, O uncontrollable! If evenI were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed _50Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed _55One 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, _60Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves to quicken a new birth!And, by the incantation of this verse, _65
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearthAshes 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
***
[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 carePoets could but find the sameWith as little toil as they, _5Would they ever change their hueAs the light chameleons do,Suiting it to every rayTwenty times a day?
Poets are on this cold earth, _10As chameleons might be,Hidden from their early birthin a cave beneath the sea;Where light is, chameleons change:Where love is not, poets do: _15Fame is love disguised: if fewFind either, never think it strangeThat poets range.
Yet dare not stain with wealth or powerA poet’s free and heavenly mind: _20If bright chameleons should devourAny food but beams and wind,They would grow as earthly soonAs their brother lizards are.Children of a sunnier star, _25Spirits from beyond the moon,Oh, refuse the boon!
***
[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 theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright:I arise from dreams of thee, _5And a spirit in my feetHath led me—who knows how?To thy chamber window, Sweet!
2.The wandering airs they faintOn the dark, the silent stream— _10The Champak odours failLike sweet thoughts in a dream;The nightingale’s complaint,It dies upon her heart;—As I must on thine, _15Oh, beloved as thou art!
3.Oh lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale. _20My 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.
NOTES: _3 Harvard manuscript omits When. _4 shining]burning Harvard manuscript, 1822. _7 Hath led Browning manuscript, 1822; Has borne Harvard manuscript; Has led 1824. _11 The Champak Harvard manuscript, 1822, 1824; And the Champak’s Browning manuscript. _15 As I must on 1822, 1824; As I must die on Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition. _16 Oh, beloved Browning manuscript, Harvard manuscript, 1839, 1st edition; Beloved 1822, 1824. _23 press it to thine own Browning manuscript; press it close to thine Harvard manuscript, 1824, 1839, 1st edition; press me to thine own, 1822.
***
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
O pillow cold and wet with tears!Thou breathest sleep no more!
***
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
1.Thou art fair, and few are fairerOf the Nymphs of earth or ocean;They are robes that fit the wearer—Those soft limbs of thine, whose motionEver falls and shifts and glances _5As the life within them dances.
2.Thy deep eyes, a double Planet,Gaze the wisest into madnessWith soft clear fire,—the winds that fan itAre those thoughts of tender gladness _10Which, like zephyrs on the billow,Make thy gentle soul their pillow.
3.If, whatever face thou paintestIn those eyes, grows pale with pleasure,If the fainting soul is faintest _15When it hears thy harp’s wild measure,Wonder not that when thou speakestOf the weak my heart is weakest.
4.As dew beneath the wind of morning,As the sea which whirlwinds waken, _20As the birds at thunder’s warning,As aught mute yet deeply shaken,As one who feels an unseen spiritIs my heart when thine is near it.
***
[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 whomSome bright spirit lived, and didThat decaying robe consumeWhich its lustre faintly hid,—Here its ashes find a tomb, _5But beneath this pyramidThou art not—if a thing divineLike thee can die, thy funeral shrineIs thy mother’s grief and mine.
2.Where art thou, my gentle child? _10Let me think thy spirit feeds,With its life intense and mild,The love of living leaves and weedsAmong these tombs and ruins wild;—Let me think that through low seeds _15Of sweet flowers and sunny grassInto their hues and scents may passA portion—
Motto _1 may I Harvard manuscript; I may 1824. _12 With Harvard manuscript, Mrs. Shelley, 1847; Within 1824, 1839. _16 Of sweet Harvard manuscript; Of the sweet 1824, 1839.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
Thy little footsteps on the sandsOf 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 _5When we returned to gaze on thee—
***
[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; _5Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,WhereFor thine own sake I cannot follow thee.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
The world is dreary,And I am wearyOf wandering on without thee, Mary;A joy was erewhileIn thy voice and thy smile, _5And ’tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.
***
[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 _5Loveliness 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 graceWhich turns the gazer’s spirit into stone, _10Whereon the lineaments of that dead faceAre graven, till the characters be grownInto itself, and thought no more can trace;’Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrownAthwart 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 flowAnd their long tangles in each other lock, _20And with unending involutions showTheir mailed radiance, as it were to mockThe torture and the death within, and sawThe solid air with many a ragged jaw.
4.And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft _25Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereftOf sense, has flitted with a mad surpriseOut of the cave this hideous light had cleft,And he comes hastening like a moth that hies _30After a taper; and the midnight skyFlares, a light more dread than obscurity.
5.’Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;For from the serpents gleams a brazen glareKindled by that inextricable error, _35Which makes a thrilling vapour of the airBecome a … and ever-shifting mirrorOf all the beauty and the terror there—A woman’s countenance, with serpent-locks,Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks. _40
NOTES: _5 seems 1839; seem 1824. _6 shine]shrine 1824, 1839. _26 those 1824; these 1839.
***
[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 riverAnd the rivers with the Ocean,The winds of Heaven mix for everWith a sweet emotion;Nothing in the world is single; _5All things by a law divineIn one spirit meet and mingle.Why not I with thine?—
2.See the mountains kiss high HeavenAnd the waves clasp one another; _10No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdained its brother;And the sunlight clasps the earthAnd the moonbeams kiss the sea:What is all this sweet work worth _15If thou kiss not me?
NOTES: _3 mix for ever 1819, Stacey manuscript; meet together, Harvard manuscript. _7 In one spirit meet and Stacey manuscript; In one another’s being 1819, Harvard manuscript. _11 No sister 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts; No leaf or 1819. _12 disdained its 1824, Harvard and Stacey manuscripts; disdained to kiss its 1819. _15 is all this sweet work Stacey manuscript; were these examples Harvard manuscript; are all these kissings 1819, 1824.
***
[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 taleTo the odour-scented gale, _5For they two have enough to doOf such work as I and you.
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
At the creation of the EarthPleasure, that divinest birth,From the soil of Heaven did rise,Wrapped in sweet wild melodies—Like an exhalation wreathing _5To the sound of air low-breathingThrough Aeolian pines, which makeA shade and shelter to the lakeWhence it rises soft and slow;Her life-breathing [limbs] did flow _10In the harmony divineOf an ever-lengthening lineWhich enwrapped her perfect formWith a beauty clear and warm.
***
[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.
***
[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 clungLike curses on them; are ye slow to borrowThe lore of truth from such a tale? _5Or in this world’s deserted vale,Do ye not see a star of gladnessPierce the shadows of its sadness,—When ye are cold, that love is a light sentFrom Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent? _10
NOTE: _9 cold]told cj. A.C. Bradley. For the metre cp. Fragment: To a Friend Released from Prison.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
There is a warm and gentle atmosphereAbout the form of one we love, and thusAs in a tender mist our spirits areWrapped in the … of that which is to usThe health of life’s own life— _5
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
I am as a spirit who has dweltWithin his heart of hearts, and I have feltHis feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and knownThe inmost converse of his soul, the toneUnheard but in the silence of his blood, _5When all the pulses in their multitudeImage the trembling calm of summer seas.I have unlocked the golden melodiesOf his deep soul, as with a master-key,And loosened them and bathed myself therein— _10Even as an eagle in a thunder-mistClothing his wings with lightning.
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Is it that in some brighter sphereWe part from friends we meet with here?Or do we see the Future passOver the Present’s dusky glass?Or what is that that makes us seem _5To patch up fragments of a dream,Part of which comes true, and partBeats and trembles in the heart?
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Is not to-day enough? Why do I peerInto 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; _5And who waits for thee in that cheerless homeWhence thou hast fled, whither thou must returnCharged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?
***
[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, _5While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
How sweet it is to sit and read the talesOf mighty poets and to hear the whileSweet music, which when the attention failsFills the dim pause—
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
And where is truth? On tombs? for such to theeHas been my heart—and thy dead memoryHas lain from childhood, many a changeful year,Unchangingly preserved and buried there.
***
[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 chaffIn the tempest, and be our laughHis despair—her epitaph! _5
2.When a mother clasps her child,Watch till dusty Death has piledHis cold ashes on the clay;She has loved it many a day—She remains,—it fades away. _10
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
Wake the serpent not—lest heShould not know the way to go,—Let him crawl which yet lies sleepingThrough the deep grass of the meadow!Not a bee shall hear him creeping, _5Not a may-fly shall awakenFrom its cradling blue-bell shaken,Not the starlight as he’s slidingThrough the grass with silent gliding.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
The fitful alternations of the rain,When the chill wind, languid as with painOf its own heavy moisture, here and thereDrives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
One sung of thee who left the tale untold,Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
As the sunrise to the night,As the north wind to the clouds,As the earthquake’s fiery flight,Ruining mountain solitudes,Everlasting Italy, _5Be those hopes and fears on thee.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
I am drunk with the honey wineOf the moon-unfolded eglantine,Which fairies catch in hyacinth bowls.The bats, the dormice, and the molesSleep in the walls or under the sward _5Of the desolate castle yard;And when ’tis spilt on the summer earthOr its fumes arise among the dew,Their jocund dreams are full of mirth,They gibber their joy in sleep; for few _10Of the fairies bear those bowls so new!
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
1.In the cave which wild weeds coverWait for thine aethereal lover;For the pallid moon is waning,O’er the spiral cypress hangingAnd the moon no cloud is staining. _5
2.It was once a Roman’s chamber,Where he kept his darkest revels,And the wild weeds twine and clamber;It was then a chasm for devils.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]
Rome has fallen, ye see it lyingHeaped in undistinguished ruin:Nature is alone undying.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]
As a violet’s gentle eyeGazes on the azure skyUntil its hue grows like what it beholds;As a gray and empty mistLies like solid amethyst _5Over the western mountain it enfolds,When the sunset sleepsUpon its snow;As a strain of sweetest soundWraps itself the wind around _10Until the voiceless wind be music too;As aught dark, vain, and dull,Basking in what is beautiful,Is full of light and love—
***
[Published by H. Buxton Forman, “The Mask of Anarchy” (“Facsimile ofShelley’s manuscript”), 1887.]
From the cities where from caves,Like the dead from putrid graves,Troops of starvelings gliding come,Living Tenants of a tomb.
***
Shelley loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people’s side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heart-felt compassion he went home to the direct point of injury—that oppression is detestable as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the scope of the “Ode to the Assertors of Liberty”. He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty.
***
[Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated ‘March, 1820,’ in Harvard manuscript), and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, the same year: included in the Harvard College manuscript book. Reprinted in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions.]
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,And the young winds fed it with silver dew,And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
And the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
But none ever trembled and panted with blissIn the garden, the field, or the wilderness, _10Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want,As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
The snowdrop, and then the violet,Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent _15From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,And narcissi, the fairest among them all,Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess,Till they die of their own dear loveliness; _20
And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,Whom youth makes so fair and passion so paleThat the light of its tremulous bells is seenThrough their pavilions of tender green;
And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, _25Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anewOf music so delicate, soft, and intense,It was felt like an odour within the sense;
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, _30Till, fold after fold, to the fainting airThe soul of her beauty and love lay bare:
And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup,Till the fiery star, which is its eye,Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; _35
And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,The sweetest flower for scent that blows;And all rare blossoms from every climeGrew in that garden in perfect prime. _40
And on the stream whose inconstant bosomWas pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom,With golden and green light, slanting throughTheir heaven of many a tangled hue,
Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, _45And starry river-buds glimmered by,And around them the soft stream did glide and danceWith a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss,Which led through the garden along and across, _50Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,
Were all paved with daisies and delicate bellsAs fair as the fabulous asphodels,And flow’rets which, drooping as day drooped too, _55Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.
And from this undefiled ParadiseThe flowers (as an infant’s awakening eyesSmile on its mother, whose singing sweet _60Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),
When Heaven’s blithe winds had unfolded them,As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one _65Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;
For each one was interpenetratedWith the light and the odour its neighbour shed,Like young lovers whom youth and love make dearWrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.
But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit _70Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,Received more than all, it loved more than ever,Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,—
For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;Radiance and odour are not its dower; _75It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!
The light winds which from unsustaining wingsShed the music of many murmurings;The beams which dart from many a star _80Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;
The plumed insects swift and free,Like golden boats on a sunny sea,Laden with light and odour, which passOver the gleam of the living grass; _85
The unseen clouds of the dew, which lieLike fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,Then wander like spirits among the spheres,Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;
The quivering vapours of dim noontide, _90Which like a sea o’er the warm earth glide,In which every sound, and odour, and beam,Move, as reeds in a single stream;
Each and all like ministering angels wereFor the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, _95Whilst the lagging hours of the day went byLike windless clouds o’er a tender sky.
And when evening descended from Heaven above,And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love,And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, _100And the day’s veil fell from the world of sleep,
And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drownedIn an ocean of dreams without a sound;Whose waves never mark, though they ever impressThe light sand which paves it, consciousness; _105
(Only overhead the sweet nightingaleEver sang more sweet as the day might fail,And snatches of its Elysian chantWere mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);—
The Sensitive Plant was the earliest _110Upgathered into the bosom of rest;A sweet child weary of its delight,The feeblest and yet the favourite,Cradled within the embrace of Night.
NOTES: _6 Like the Spirit of Love felt 1820; And the Spirit of Love felt 1839, 1st edition; And the Spirit of Love fell 1839, 2nd edition. _49 and of moss]and moss Harvard manuscript. _82 The]And the Harvard manuscript.
There was a Power in this sweet place,An Eve in this Eden; a ruling GraceWhich to the flowers, did they waken or dream,Was as God is to the starry scheme.
A Lady, the wonder of her kind, _5Whose form was upborne by a lovely mindWhich, dilating, had moulded her mien and motionLike a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,
Tended the garden from morn to even:And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven, _10Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth,Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth!
She had no companion of mortal race,But her tremulous breath and her flushing faceTold, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, _15That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:
As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sakeHad deserted Heaven while the stars were awake,As if yet around her he lingering were,Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. _20
Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed;You might hear by the heaving of her breast,That the coming and going of the windBrought pleasure there and left passion behind.
And wherever her aery footstep trod, _25Her trailing hair from the grassy sodErased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep,Like a sunny storm o’er the dark green deep.
I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweetRejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet; _30I doubt not they felt the spirit that cameFrom her glowing fingers through all their frame.
She sprinkled bright water from the streamOn those that were faint with the sunny beam;And out of the cups of the heavy flowers _35She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers.
She lifted their heads with her tender hands,And sustained them with rods and osier-bands;If the flowers had been her own infants, sheCould never have nursed them more tenderly. _40
And all killing insects and gnawing worms,And things of obscene and unlovely forms,She bore, in a basket of Indian woof,Into the rough woods far aloof,—
In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, _45The freshest her gentle hands could pullFor the poor banished insects, whose intent,Although they did ill, was innocent.
But the bee and the beamlike ephemerisWhose path is the lightning’s, and soft moths that kiss _50The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did sheMake her attendant angels be.
And many an antenatal tomb,Where butterflies dream of the life to come,She left clinging round the smooth and dark _55Edge of the odorous cedar bark.
This fairest creature from earliest SpringThus moved through the garden ministeringMid the sweet season of Summertide,And ere the first leaf looked brown—she died! _60
NOTES: _15 morn Harvard manuscript, 1839; moon 1820. _23 and going 1820; and the going Harvard manuscript, 1839. _59 All 1820, 1839; Through all Harvard manuscript.
Three days the flowers of the garden fair,Like stars when the moon is awakened, were,Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminousShe floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.
And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant _5Felt the sound of the funeral chant,And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow,And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low;
The weary sound and the heavy breath,And the silent motions of passing death, _10And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank;
The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass,Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass;From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, _15And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.
The garden, once fair, became cold and foul,Like the corpse of her who had been its soul,Which at first was lovely as if in sleep,Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap _20To make men tremble who never weep.
Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed,And frost in the mist of the morning rode,Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright,Mocking the spoil of the secret night. _25
The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,Paved the turf and the moss below.The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan,Like the head and the skin of a dying man.
And Indian plants, of scent and hue _30The sweetest that ever were fed on dew,Leaf by leaf, day after day,Were massed into the common clay.
And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red,And white with the whiteness of what is dead, _35Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed;Their whistling noise made the birds aghast.
And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds,Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds,Till they clung round many a sweet flower’s stem, _40Which rotted into the earth with them.
The water-blooms under the rivuletFell from the stalks on which they were set;And the eddies drove them here and there,As the winds did those of the upper air. _45
Then the rain came down, and the broken stalksWere bent and tangled across the walks;And the leafless network of parasite bowersMassed into ruin; and all sweet flowers.
Between the time of the wind and the snow _50All loathliest weeds began to grow,Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck,Like the water-snake’s belly and the toad’s back.
And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, _55Stretched out its long and hollow shank,And stifled the air till the dead wind stank.
And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath,Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth,Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, _60Livid, and starred with a lurid dew.
And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mouldStarted like mist from the wet ground cold;Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying deadWith a spirit of growth had been animated! _65
Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum,Made the running rivulet thick and dumb,And at its outlet flags huge as stakesDammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.
And hour by hour, when the air was still, _70The vapours arose which have strength to kill;At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt,At night they were darkness no star could melt.
And unctuous meteors from spray to sprayCrept and flitted in broad noonday _75Unseen; every branch on which they alitBy a venomous blight was burned and bit.
The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid,Wept, and the tears within each lidOf its folded leaves, which together grew, _80Were changed to a blight of frozen glue.
For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soonBy the heavy axe of the blast were hewn;The sap shrank to the root through every poreAs blood to a heart that will beat no more. _85
For Winter came: the wind was his whip:One choppy finger was on his lip:He had torn the cataracts from the hillsAnd they clanked at his girdle like manacles;
His breath was a chain which without a sound _90The earth, and the air, and the water bound;He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throneBy the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone.
Then the weeds which were forms of living deathFled from the frost to the earth beneath. _95Their decay and sudden flight from frostWas but like the vanishing of a ghost!
And under the roots of the Sensitive PlantThe moles and the dormice died for want:The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air _100And were caught in the branches naked and bare.
First there came down a thawing rainAnd its dull drops froze on the boughs again;Then there steamed up a freezing dewWhich to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; _105
And a northern whirlwind, wandering aboutLike a wolf that had smelt a dead child out,Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff,And snapped them off with his rigid griff.
When Winter had gone and Spring came back _110The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.
Whether the Sensitive Plant, or thatWhich within its boughs like a Spirit sat, _115Ere its outward form had known decay,Now felt this change, I cannot say.
Whether that Lady’s gentle mind,No longer with the form combinedWhich scattered love, as stars do light, _120Found sadness, where it left delight,
I dare not guess; but in this lifeOf error, ignorance, and strife,Where nothing is, but all things seem,And we the shadows of the dream, _125
It is a modest creed, and yetPleasant if one considers it,To own that death itself must be,Like all the rest, a mockery.
That garden sweet, that lady fair, _130And all sweet shapes and odours there,In truth have never passed away:’Tis we, ’tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,There is no death nor change: their might _135Exceeds our organs, which endureNo light, being themselves obscure.
NOTES: _19 lovely Harvard manuscript, 1839; lively 1820. _23 of the morning 1820, 1839; of morning Harvard manuscript. _26 snow Harvard manuscript, 1839; now 1820. _28 And lilies were drooping, white and wan Harvard manuscript. _32 Leaf by leaf, day after day Harvard manuscript; Leaf after leaf, day after day 1820; Leaf after leaf, day by day 1839. _63 mist]mists Harvard manuscript. _96 and sudden flight]and their sudden flight the Harvard manuscript. _98 And under]Under Harvard manuscript. _114 Whether]And if Harvard manuscript. _118 Whether]Or if Harvard manuscript.
***
[This stanza followed 3, 62-65 in the editio princeps, 1820, but was omitted by Mrs. Shelley from all editions from 1839 onwards. It is cancelled in the Harvard manuscript.]
Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake,Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer’s stake,Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high,Infecting the winds that wander by.
***
[Composed at Pisa early in 1820, and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year. A transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting is included in the Harvard manuscript book, where it is dated ‘April, 1820.’]
’Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sailAre flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale:From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven,And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven,She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin _5And bend, as if Heaven was ruining in,Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible massAs if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they passTo their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound,And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, _10Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossedThrough the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lostIn the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweepOf the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deepIt sinks, and the walls of the watery vale _15Whose depths of dread calm are unmoved by the gale,Dim mirrors of ruin, hang gleaming about;While the surf, like a chaos of stars, like a routOf death-flames, like whirlpools of fire-flowing iron,With splendour and terror the black ship environ, _20Or like sulphur-flakes hurled from a mine of pale fireIn fountains spout o’er it. In many a spireThe pyramid-billows with white points of brineIn the cope of the lightning inconstantly shine,As piercing the sky from the floor of the sea. _25The great ship seems splitting! it cracks as a tree,While an earthquake is splintering its root, ere the blastOf the whirlwind that stripped it of branches has passed.The intense thunder-balls which are raining from HeavenHave shattered its mast, and it stands black and riven. _30The chinks suck destruction. The heavy dead hulkOn the living sea rolls an inanimate bulk,Like a corpse on the clay which is hungering to foldIts corruption around it. Meanwhile, from the hold,One deck is burst up by the waters below, _35And it splits like the ice when the thaw-breezes blowO’er the lakes of the desert! Who sit on the other?Is that all the crew that lie burying each other,Like the dead in a breach, round the foremast? Are thoseTwin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, _40In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold;(What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold;)Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank,The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating plankAre these all? Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain _45On the windless expanse of the watery plain,Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon,And there seemed to be fire in the beams of the moon,Till a lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep,Whose breath was quick pestilence; then, the cold sleep _50Crept, like blight through the ears of a thick field of corn,O’er the populous vessel. And even and morn,With their hammocks for coffins the seamen aghastLike dead men the dead limbs of their comrades castDown the deep, which closed on them above and around, _55And the sharks and the dogfish their grave-clothes unbound,And were glutted like Jews with this manna rained downFrom God on their wilderness. One after oneThe mariners died; on the eve of this day,When the tempest was gathering in cloudy array, _60But seven remained. Six the thunder has smitten,And they lie black as mummies on which Time has writtenHis scorn of the embalmer; the seventh, from the deckAn oak-splinter pierced through his breast and his back,And hung out to the tempest, a wreck on the wreck. _65No more? At the helm sits a woman more fairThan Heaven, when, unbinding its star-braided hair,It sinks with the sun on the earth and the sea.She clasps a bright child on her upgathered knee;It laughs at the lightning, it mocks the mixed thunder _70Of the air and the sea, with desire and with wonderIt is beckoning the tigers to rise and come near,It would play with those eyes where the radiance of fearIs outshining the meteors; its bosom beats high,The heart-fire of pleasure has kindled its eye, _75While its mother’s is lustreless. ‘Smile not, my child,But sleep deeply and sweetly, and so be beguiledOf the pang that awaits us, whatever that be,So dreadful since thou must divide it with me!Dream, sleep! This pale bosom, thy cradle and bed, _80Will it rock thee not, infant? ’Tis beating with dread!Alas! what is life, what is death, what are we,That when the ship sinks we no longer may be?What! to see thee no more, and to feel thee no more?To be after life what we have been before? _85Not to touch those sweet hands? Not to look on those eyes,Those lips, and that hair,—all the smiling disguiseThou yet wearest, sweet Spirit, which I, day by day,Have so long called my child, but which now fades awayLike a rainbow, and I the fallen shower?’—Lo! the ship _90Is settling, it topples, the leeward ports dip;The tigers leap up when they feel the slow brineCrawling inch by inch on them; hair, ears, limbs, and eyne,Stand rigid with horror; a loud, long, hoarse cryBursts at once from their vitals tremendously, _95And ’tis borne down the mountainous vale of the wave,Rebounding, like thunder, from crag to cave,Mixed with the clash of the lashing rain,Hurried on by the might of the hurricane:The hurricane came from the west, and passed on _100By the path of the gate of the eastern sun,Transversely dividing the stream of the storm;As an arrowy serpent, pursuing the formOf an elephant, bursts through the brakes of the waste.Black as a cormorant the screaming blast, _105Between Ocean and Heaven, like an ocean, passed,Till it came to the clouds on the verge of the worldWhich, based on the sea and to Heaven upcurled,Like columns and walls did surround and sustainThe dome of the tempest; it rent them in twain, _110As a flood rends its barriers of mountainous crag:And the dense clouds in many a ruin and rag,Like the stones of a temple ere earthquake has passed,Like the dust of its fall, on the whirlwind are cast;They are scattered like foam on the torrent; and where _115The wind has burst out through the chasm, from the airOf clear morning the beams of the sunrise flow in,Unimpeded, keen, golden, and crystalline,Banded armies of light and of air; at one gateThey encounter, but interpenetrate. _120And that breach in the tempest is widening away,And the caverns of cloud are torn up by the day,And the fierce winds are sinking with weary wings,Lulled by the motion and murmuringsAnd the long glassy heave of the rocking sea, _125And overhead glorious, but dreadful to see,The wrecks of the tempest, like vapours of gold,Are consuming in sunrise. The heaped waves beholdThe deep calm of blue Heaven dilating above,And, like passions made still by the presence of Love, _130Beneath the clear surface reflecting it slideTremulous with soft influence; extending its tideFrom the Andes to Atlas, round mountain and isle,Round sea-birds and wrecks, paved with Heaven’s azure smile,The wide world of waters is vibrating. Where _135Is the ship? On the verge of the wave where it layOne tiger is mingled in ghastly affrayWith a sea-snake. The foam and the smoke of the battleStain the clear air with sunbows; the jar, and the rattleOf solid bones crushed by the infinite stress _140Of the snake’s adamantine voluminousness;And the hum of the hot blood that spouts and rainsWhere the gripe of the tiger has wounded the veinsSwollen with rage, strength, and effort; the whirl and the splashAs of some hideous engine whose brazen teeth smash _145The thin winds and soft waves into thunder; the screamsAnd hissings crawl fast o’er the smooth ocean-streams,Each sound like a centipede. Near this commotion,A blue shark is hanging within the blue ocean,The fin-winged tomb of the victor. The other _150Is winning his way from the fate of his brotherTo his own with the speed of despair. Lo! a boatAdvances; twelve rowers with the impulse of thoughtUrge on the keen keel,—the brine foams. At the sternThree marksmen stand levelling. Hot bullets burn _155In the breast of the tiger, which yet bears him onTo his refuge and ruin. One fragment alone,—’Tis dwindling and sinking, ’tis now almost gone,—Of the wreck of the vessel peers out of the sea.With her left hand she grasps it impetuously. _160With her right she sustains her fair infant. Death, Fear,Love, Beauty, are mixed in the atmosphere,Which trembles and burns with the fervour of dreadAround her wild eyes, her bright hand, and her head,Like a meteor of light o’er the waters! her child _165Is yet smiling, and playing, and murmuring; so smiledThe false deep ere the storm. Like a sister and brotherThe child and the ocean still smile on each other,Whilst—