THE POEMS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY .j' ^^'■;s:^'d^^ ■fm ;_.i,i# ' ; ^•^ r ""w^" 4; v.i~ ^^ •J o 5 N X ^ 8 THE POEMS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY EDITED WITH NOTES BY G. D. LOGOCK WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. CLUTTON-BROCK IN TWO VOLUMES I VOL II WITH A FRONTISPIECE METHUfiN AMt CO. LTD, 36 ESSEX STREET W^.C. LONDON First Published in rgii CONTENTS PART I {contimied) PRINCIPAL POEMS 1821-22 PAGE Epipsychidion (1821). .... 1 Adonais (1821) 22 Prologue to Hellas . . , . 41 Hellas (1821) 46 GiNEVRA (1821) ..... 85 FRAGMEirr OF AN UNFINISHED DrAMA (1822) 91 Charles I. (1822) 98 The Triumph of Life (1822) . 125 PART II SHORTER POEMS 1814-22 t^ Poems of 1814-15 ^ Stanza, written at Bracknell (1814) . Stanzas— (April 1814) To Harriet : " Thy look of love " (1814) To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1814) V Sonnet to : "Yet look on me" (1814?) AAKPTSI AIOISO HOTMON 'APOTMON Mutability: ("We are as clouds") On Death: ("The pale, the cold") A Summer-Evening Churchyard (1815) Sonnet : To Wordsworth . Feelings of a Republican on the fall of Bonaparte y Lines: "The cold Earth slept below " (1815 or 1816) 141 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 149 149 VI CONTENTS Poems of 1816 / The Sunset Hymn to Intellectual Beauty . Mont Blanc .... Fragments— ^ Home . . , . Helen and Henry . Poems of 1817 w^ Marianne's Dream . To Constantia, Singing . Fragment : To one Singing To Constantia Fragment: To Music ("Silver Key") Fragment: To Music ("No, Music") To THE Lord Chancellor . To William Shelley On Fanny Godwin . Death: ("They die— the dead return not' Lines: "That time is dead forever, child' Lines to a Critic: ("Honey from silkworms A Hate-Song .... Sonnet: Ozymandias Fragments— . "Mighty Eagle" . . Otho .... The Soaring Mind A Cloud- Chariot . . , To one freed from Prison Satan at large Unsatisfied Desire Love Immortal Elusive Thoughts . " Serene, in his unconquerable might " Soft pillows for the fiends " ^ Address to the Human Mind ,, To Mary .... Nonsense Verses , ") PAGB 151 152 154 158 158 159 163 164 165 165 165 165 168 170 170 170 171 171 172 172 172 173 174 174 174 175 175 175 175 176 176 176 176 Poems of 1818 To the Nile . ^ Passage of the Apennines ^The Past 177 177 178 CONTENTS vii On a faded Violet . Sonnet: "Lift not the painted veil The Woodman and the Nightingale Invocation to Misery Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples Scene from " Tasso " Song for "Tasso" . Fragments— ^ To Mary .... Addressed to Byron To Silence . . The Stream's Margin A Lost Leader ' The Vine . . . . '^ "Great Spirit" . FAOB 178 178 179 181 183 184 185 186 187 187 187 187 187 188 Poems of 1819 Lines written during the Castlereagh Adminis TRATION . Song to the Men of England To SiDMOUTH AND CASTLEREAGH Sonnet : England in 1819 . Fragment: To the People of England A NEW National Anthem . An Ode to the Assertors of Liberty Ode to Heaven An Exhortation Ode to the West Wind . On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci The Indian Serenade To Sophia Love's Philosophy . To William Shelley ("My lost William") To William Shelley ("Thy little footsteps") To Mary Shelley (" My dearest Mary") To Mary Shelley ("The world is dreary") Fragments— "Follow" . ^^ The Birth of Pleasure ^ To-day ^ " A gentle story " . ^r- Love's Atmosphere The Poet's Lover . 189 190 191 191 192 192 194 195 196 197 200 201 202 202 203 204 204 204 204 205 205 205 205 206 Vlll CONTENTS Fragments — continued , A Mystery . / Forebodings Transient Thoughts y Poetry and Music . The Tomb of Memory Song of Furies A Serpent Asleep . Rain and Wind A Tale Untold To Italy . Wine of Eglantine A Roman's Chamber Rome O Pillow Cold " When a Nation screams aloud " The living frame " / PAOH 206 206 206 207 207 207 207 208 208 208 208 208 209 209 209 209 Poems of 1820 A Vision of the Sea . . . , . 210 The Cloud ...,.,. 214 To A Skylark . . . . . ,216 ^^ Arethusa ....... 219 Song of Proserpine . . . . .221 .V Hymn of Apollo ...... 222 ..,^\ Hymn of Pan . . . . . .223 \ The Question . . . . . .224 j^ The Two Spirits ...... 225 j» To ("I FEAR THY KISSES, GENTLE MAIDEN") . 227 '*" \ Autumn : A Dirge . . . . . .227 '^ Study FOR ** Autumn, A DIRGE" (?) . . .228 ^ Liberty ....... 228 ^ An Allegory . . . . . . .229 i The Tower of Famine . . . . .229 Sonnet: **Ye hasten to the grave!" . . . 230 Death ("Death is here and Death is there") . 230 ^Summer and Winter . . . . .231 ^ Time long Past . . . . . .231 iX Good-Night ....... 232 ^BUONA NOTTE. . . . . . .232 -»VTo the Moon ("Art thou pale for weariness?" . 233 ' The Waning Moon . . . . . .233 The World's Wanderers ..... 233 _^ Lines to a Reviewer (•* Alas! good friend") . 234 CONTENTS ix PAoa j^ A Satire on Satire . . . . . 234 ^Orpheus ..,.,.. 235 ^FlORDISPINA ....... 238 Fragments— ^ . The Deserts of Sleep . . . 240 ^ Consequence ...... 241 ^ A Face ....... ^Torpor j^ Hope, Fear, and Doubt . . . . . 241 241 241 Disappointment ...... 241 A Milton's Spirit ...... 242 May ...... 242 ** Thy beauty hangs" .... 242 ' Fragment of an Ode . . . . . 242 , "And through the silent" . . . . 242 Fragment of a Translation (?) . 242 Poems op 1821 Dirge for the Year .... . 243 *VTime ^ To Night 244 . 244 ^ To Emilia Viviani ...... 245 From the Arabic ..... 245 Song : " Rarely, rarely, comest thou," 246 ^ Mutability ("The flower that smiles to-day") . 248 ^ Lines: " Far, far away, ye " . . 248 .A Lament ...... ^To ("Music, when soft voices die") Sonnet : Political Greatness . Lines written on hearing the news of the deati . 249 . 249 249 I OF Napoleon ..... . 250 ^, The Fugitives ..... . 251 ^ To ("One word is too often profaned") . 253 Music ("I pant for the music which is divine") 253 1^ To ("When passion's trance is overpast") . 254 ^ To Edward Williams .... . 255 ^^.Remembrance . . . . . 256 /A Bridal Song . . ^ . . . 257 „ {second version) . 258 „ (third version) . 259 Evening : Ponte a Mare, Pisa . . 260 ^ The Boat on the Serchio. . 260 Fragment: "I would not be a King" , 263 X CONTENTS PAOK The Aziola ...... . 264 Sonnet to Byron ..... . 264 On Keats ...... . 265 Fragments— A Dream ....,, . 265 To-morrow. ..... . 265 "If I walk in Autumn's even" . . 265 A Wanderer ..... . 266 From Rest to Rest .... . 266 " I faint, I perish with my love ! " . 266 The Lady of the South .... . 266 Zephyr ...... . 266 Rain- Wind ..... . 267 Hidden Dangers ..... . 267 "The rude wind is singing" . . . . 267 *' thou Immortal Deity " . 267 Laurels ...... . 267 " And that I walk " .... 268 Poems of 1822 The Zucca ....... 269 The Magnetic Lady to her Patient . . 271 Lines: "When the Lamp is shattered'* . 273 To Jane : The Invitation .... . 274 To Jane : The Recollection . 275 With a Guitar, to Jane .... . 278 To Jane: "The keen stars were twinkling" 280 A Dirge ...... 280 Lines written in the Bay of Lerici . 281 Lines: "We meet not as we parted'*. . 282 The Isle ...... . 283 To the MOON ("Bright wanderer'') . 283 Epitaph ..,,.. 283 PART III TRANSLATIONS From Homer— Hymns— To Mercury . . . . . 285 To Castor and Pollux .... 307 To Minerva . . . 307 To the Sun ...... 308 To the Moon ...... 308 CONTENTS XI Hymns — continued page To the Earth, Mother of All . . . . 309 To Venus ....... 310 The Cyclops of Euripides .... 312 Epigrams from the Greek— Spirit of Plato . . . . . .341 Circumstance ...... 341 To Stella ....... 341 Kissing Helena ...... 342 Bion's Elegy on the Death of Adonis . . 342 From Moschus— '* AVhen winds that move not its calm surface sweep " 343 Pan, Echo, and the Satyr .... 344 Elegy on the Death of Bion . . . .344 From Virgil's Tenth Eclogue .... 344 From Virgil's Fourth Georgic .... 345 From Dante— Sonnet : Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti . . 346 First Canzone of the Convito .... 346 From the Purgatorio : Matilda gathering Flowers . 348 Fragment from the Vita Nuova .... 350 Sonnet : Guido Cavalcanti to Dante Alighieri . 350 From the Italian of Brunetto Latini: **Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear" .... 350 Scenes from Calderon's Magico Prodigioso . . 352 Scenes from Goethe's Faust . . . . 375 PART IV Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem Poems from Shelley's Notes to Queen Mab- 394 Falsehood and Vice "Dark flood of Time" . . 447 . 450 NOTES . 451 INDEX OF FIRST LINES . . 555 INDEX OF TITLES . . • 561 FRONTISPIECE Casa Magni, San Terenzio Drawn in Water- Colours by Henry Roderick Newman, and Etched by Arthur Evershed Keproduced from Shelley's Prose Works, by kind permission of H. Buxton Forman, Esq. SHELLEY'S POEMS EPIPSYCHIDION (1821) VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY EMILIA V NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF L'anima amante si slancia fuori del create, e si crea nell' infinite un Mondo tutto per essa, diverse assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. Her own words. TV T Y Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few XVx Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, — Of such hard matter dost thou entertain ; Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring Thee to base company, (as chance may do) Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again. My last delight ! tell them that they are dull, And bid them own that thou art beautiful. ADVERTISEMENT The Writer of the following Lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular ; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the 2 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY circumstances to which it relates ; and to a certain otlier class it must ever remain incomprehensible^ from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico : e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendiinento. The present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite ^ page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous Canzone Voij ch* intendendof il terzo del movete, etc. The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate friend : be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. S. EPIPSYCHIDION SWEET Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one, Whose empire is the name thou weepest on. In my heart's temple I suspend to thee These votive wreaths of withered memory. Poor captive bird ! who, from thy narrow cage, Pourest such music, that it might assuage The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee. Were they not deaf to all sweet melody ; This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! lo But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom. And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. High, spirit-winged Heart ! who dost forever Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour. Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed It oversoared this low and worldly shade. Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest ! I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be. Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 20 Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human. Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman All that is insupportable in thee Of light, and love, and immortality ! ^ I.e. the nine lines on the preceding page. — Ed. EPIPSYCHIDION 3 Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse ! Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe ! Thou Moon beyond the clouds ! Thou living Form Among the Dead ! Thou Star above the Storm ; Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! Thou Harmony of Nature's art ! Thou Mirror 30 In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! — Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow ; — I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song All of its much mortality and wrong. With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through. Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy : Then smile on it, so that it may not die. 40 I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily, I love thee ; though the world by no thin name W^ill hide that love from its unvalued shame. Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee. Blending two beams of one eternity ! Yet were one lawful or the other true. These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 50 How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! I am not thine : I am a part of thee. Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings ; Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings. Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style. All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless ? A well of sealed and secret happiness. Whose waters like blithe light and music are, Vanquishing dissonance and gloom ? a Star 60 Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone } A smile amid dark frowns ? a gentle tone Amid rude voices ? a beloved light } A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight ? A lute, which those whom Love has taught to play Make music on, to soothe the roughest day And lull fond Grief asleep ? a buried treasure } A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure } A violet-shi'ouded grave of Woe t — I measure PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 70 And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. She met me. Stranger, upon life's rough way. And lured me towards sweet Death ; as Night by Day, Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, Led into light, life, peace. An antelope. In the suspended impulse of its lightness. Were less aetherially light : the brightness Of her divinest presence trembles through Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew Embodied in the windless Heaven of June, 80 Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon Burns inextinguishably beautiful : And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops. Killing the sense with passion ; sweet as stops Of planetary music heard in trance. In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap Under the lightnings of the soul — too deep For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 90 The glory of her being, issuing thence. Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade Of unentangled intermixture, made By Love, of light and motion : one intense Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing. With the unintermitted blood, which there Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) — 100 Continuously prolonged, and ending never. Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world ; Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress. And her loose hair ; and where some heavy tress The air of her own speed has disentwined. The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ; And in the soul a wild odour is felt. Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt no Into the bosom of a frozen bud. See where she stands ! a mortal shape indued With love and life and light and deity. And motion which may change but cannot die ; An image of some bright Eternity ; EPIPSYCHIDION 5 A shadow of some golden dream ; a Splendour Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love Under whose motions life's dull billows move ; A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning ; 120 A Vision like incarnate April^ warning. With smiles and tears. Frost the Anatomy Into his summer grave. Ah, woe is me ! What have I dared ? where am I lifted ? how Shall I descend, and perish not ? I know That Love makes all things equal : I have heard By mine own heart this joyous truth averred ; The spirit of the worm beneath the sod In love and worship, blends itself with God. Spouse ! Sister ! Angel ! Pilot of the Fate 130 Whose course has been so starless ! O too late Beloved ! O too soon adored, by me ! For in the fields of immortality My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, A divine presence in a place divine ; Or should have moved beside it on this earth, A shadow of that substance, from its birth ; But not as now ... I love thee ; yes, I feel That on the fountain of my heart a seal Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 140 For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. We — are we not formed, as notes of music are. For one another, though dissimilar ; Such difference without discord, as can make Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake As trembling leaves in a continuous air } Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wreckt. I never was attached to that great sect. Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 150 Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend. And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend To cold oblivion, though 'tis in the code Of modern morals, and the beaten road Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread. Who travel to their home among the dead By the broad highway of the world, and so With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe. The dreariest and the longest journey go. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY True Love in this differs from gold and clay, i6o That to divide is not to take away. Love is like understanding, that grows bright. Gazing on many truths ; 'tis like thy light. Imagination ! which from earth and sky. And from the depths of human phantasy, As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills The Universe with glorious beams, and kills Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, 170 The life that wears, the spirit that creates One object, and one form, and builds thereby A sepulchre for its eternity. Mind from its object differs most in this : Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; The baser from the nobler ; the impure And frail, from what is clear and must endure. If you divide suffering and dross, you may Diminish till it is consumed away ; If you divide pleasure and love and thought, 180 Each part exceeds the whole ; and we know not How much, while any yet remains unshared. Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared : This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law By which those live, to whom this world of life Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife Tills for the promise of a later birth The wilderness of this Elysian earth. There was a Being whom my spirit oft 190 Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft. In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn. Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn. Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor Paved her light steps ; — on an imagined shore. Under the grey beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory. That I beheld her not. In solitudes 200 Her voice came to me through the whispering woods. And from the fountains, and the odours deep Of flowers which, like lips murmuring in their sleep EPIPSYCHIDION Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there. Breathed but of her to the enamoured air ; And from the breezes whether low or loud, And from the rain of every passing cloud. And from the singing of the summer-birds. And from all sounds^, all silence. In the words Of antique verse and high romance, — in form, Sound, colour — in whatever checks that Storm Which with the shattered present chokes the past And in that best philosophy, whose taste Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom As glorious as a fiery martyrdom ; Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. — Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire. And towards the loadstar of my one desire I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 220 Is as a dead leaf's in the owlet light. When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre. As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. — But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame. Past, like a God throned on a winged planet. Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, I would have followed, though the grave between 230 Yawned like a gulph whose spectres are unseen : When a voice said : — " O Thou of hearts the weakest, The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." Then I — ^'^ Where ? " The world's echo answered ^^ where ! " And in that silence, and in my despair, I questioned every tongueless wind that flew Over my tower of mourning, if it knew Whither 'twas fled, this soul out of my soul ; And murmured names and spells which have controul Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; 24a But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate The night which closed on her ; nor uncreate That world within this Chaos, mine and me. Of which she was the veiled Divinity, — The world, I say, of thoughts that worshipped her : And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear And every gentle passion sick to death. Feeding my course with expectation's breath, 8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Into the wintry forest of our life ; And struggling through its error with vain strife, 250 And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, And half bewildered by new forms, I past Seeking among those untaught foresters If I could find one form resembling hers. In which she might have masked herself from me. There, — One, whose voice was venomed melody Sate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers ; The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers, Her touch was as electric poison, — flame Out of her looks into my vitals came, 260 And from her living cheeks and bosom flew A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew Into the core of my green heart, and lay Upon its leaves ; until, as hair grown grey O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime With ruins of unseasonable time. In many mortal forms I rashly sought The shadow of that idol of my thought. And some were fair — but beauty dies away : Others were wise — but honeyed words betray : 270 And One was true — oh ! why not true to me ? Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay. Wounded and weak and panting ; the cold day Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain : — When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed, As is the Moon, whose changes ever run Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 280 The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles. Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles ; That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame Which ever is transformed, yet still the same, And warms not but illumines. Young and fair As the descended Spirit of that sphere. She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night From its own darkness, until all was bright Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind ; And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, 290 She led me to a cave in that wild place. And sate beside me, with her downward face Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. EPIPSYCHIDION 9 And I was laid asleep^ spirit and limb^ And all my being became bright or dim As the Moon's image in a summer sea, According as she smiled or frowned on me ; And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed : Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead : — 300 For at her silver voice came Death and Life, Unmindful each of their accustomed strife. Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother. The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother. And through the cavern without wings they flew. And cried, " Away ! he is not of our crew." I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep. What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep. Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning Hps Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; — 310 And how my soul was as a lampless sea. And who was then its Tempest ; and when She, The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast The moving billows of my being fell Into a death of ice, immoveable ; — And then — what earthquakes made it gape and split. The white Moon smiling all the while on it. These words conceal : — if not, each word would be The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me ! 320 At length, into the obscure Forest came The Vision I had sought through grief and shame. Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's, And from her presence life was radiated Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead ; So that her way was paved, and roofed above \Vith flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love ; And music from her respiration spread Like light, — all other sounds were penetrated 330 By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound. So that the savage winds hung mute around ; And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air : Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, W^hen light is changed to love, this glorious One Floated into the cavern where I lay. And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay 10 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below As smoke by fire^, and in her beauty's glow 340 I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night Was penetrating me with living light : I knew it was the Vision veiled from me So many years — that it was Emily. Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, This world of love, this me ; and into birth Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart Magnetic might into its central heart ; And lift its billows and its mists, and guide By everlasting laws, each wind and tide 350 To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave ; And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers The armies of the rainbow- winged showers ; And, as those married lights, which from the towers Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe ; And all their many-mingled influence blend. If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ; — So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway 360 Govern my sphere of being, night and day ! Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might ; Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light ; And, through the shadow of the seasons three. From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, Light it into the Winter of the tomb. Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom ! Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce. Who drew the heart of this frail Universe Towards thine own ; till, wreckt in that convulsion, 370 Alternating attraction and repulsion. Thine went astray, and that was rent in twain ; Oh, float into our azure Heaven again ! Be there love's folding-star at thy return ; The living Sun will feed thee from its urn Of golden fire ; the Moon will veil her horn In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn Will worship thee with incense of calm breath And lights and shadows ; as the star of Death And Birth is woi*shipped by those sisters wild 380 Called Hope and Fear : upon the heart are piled Their offerings, — of this sacrifice divine A World shall be the altar. EPIPSYCHIDION II Lady mine, Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes. Will be as of the trees of Paradise. The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. To whatsoe'er of dull mortality Is mine, remain a vestal sister still ; 390 To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. The hour is come : — the destined Star has risen Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set The sentinels . . . but true love never yet Was thus constrained : it overleaps all fence : Like lightning, with invisible violence Piercing its continents ; like Heaven's free breath, 400 Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death, W^ho rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms : more strength has Love than he or they ; For it can burst his charnel, and make free The limbs in chains, the heart in agony. The soul in dust and chaos. Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow ; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, — 410 No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles ; The merry mariners are bold and free : Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me ? Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest Is a far Eden of the purple East ; And we between her wings will sit, while Night, And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight. Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 420 Treading each other's heels, unheededly. It is an isle under Ionian skies. Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, And, for the harbours are not safe and good. This land would have remained a solitude But for some pastoral people native there. Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air 12 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, — Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. The blue -^gean girds this chosen home, 430 With ever-changing sound and light and foam Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar ; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide : There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond. As clear as elemental diamond. Or serene morning air ; and far beyond. The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,) 440 Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls Illumining, with sound that never fails Accompany the noonday nightingales ; And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ; The light clear element which the isle wears Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers. Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 450 And dart their arrowy odour through the brain Till you might faint with that delicious pain. And every motion, odour, beam, and tone. With that deep music is in unison, Which is a soul within the soul, — they seem Like echoes of an antenatal dream. — It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity ; Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. 460 It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks ; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way : The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 470 There fall clear exhalations, soft and bright. Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride EPIPSYCHIDION 13 Glowing at once with love and loveliness. Blushes and trembles at its own excess : Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less Burns in the heart of this delicious isle. An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen 480 O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, Filling their bare and void interstices. — But the chief marvel of the wilderness Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how None of the rustic island-people know : 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods ; but, for delight. Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 490 An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. It scarce seems now a wreck of human art. But, as it were Titanic ; in the heart Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown Out of the mountains, from the living stone. Lifting itself in caverns light and high : For all the antique and learned imagery Has been erased, and in the place of it The ivy and the wild-vine inter knit 500 The volumes of their many-twining stems ; Pai'asite flowers illume with dewy gems The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery With moonlight patches, or star-atoms keen. Or fragments of the day's intense serene ; — Working mosaic on their Parian floors. And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 510 Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we Read in their smiles, and call reality. This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed Thee to be lady of the solitude. — And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking towards the golden Eastern air. And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. — I have sent books and music there, and all Those instruments with which high spirits call 520 14 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The future from its cradle, and the past Out of its grave, and make the present last In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die. Folded within their own eternity. Our simple life wants little, and true taste Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste The scene it would adorn, and therefore still. Nature, with all her children, haunts the hill. The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ; The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight Before our gate, and the slow, silent night Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. Be this our home in life, and when years heap Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay. Let us become the overhanging day, The living soul of this Elysian isle. Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile We two will rise, and sit, and walk together. Under the roof of blue Ionian weather. And wander in the meadows, or ascend The mossy mountains, where the blue Heavens bend With lightest winds, to touch their paramour ; Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore. Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy : — Possessing and possest by all that is Within that calm circumference of bliss, 550 And by each other, till to love and live Be one : — or, at the noontide hour, arrive Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep The moonlight of the expired night asleep. Through which the awakened day can never peep ; A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ; Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. And we will talk, until thought's melody 560 Become too sweet for utterance, and it die In words, to live again in looks, which dart With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart. Harmonizing silence without a sound. Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound. And our veins beat together ; and our lips With other eloquence than words, eclipse EPIPSYCHIDION 15 The soul that bums between them, and the wells Which boil under our being's inmost cells. The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 570 Confused in passion's golden purity. As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. We shall become the same, we shall be one Spirit within two frames, oh ! wherefore two ? One passion in twin- hearts, which grows and grew. Till, like two meteors of expanding flame. Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable : In one another's substance finding food, 580 Like flames too pure and light and unimbued To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, — Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away : One hope within two willsj one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death. One Heaven, one Hell, one Immortality, And one annihilation. — Woe is me ! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Into the height of Love's rare Universe, Are chains of lead around its flight of fire ... 590 I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, And say : — " We are the masters of thy slave ; What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine ? " Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave. All singing loud : " Love's very pain is sweet. But its reward is in the world divine Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste Over the hearts of men, until ye meet 600 Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest. And bid them love each other and be blest : And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves. And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's. EARLY DRAFTS OF THE PREFACE [From the Bodleian Manuscript.] (1) The following Poem was found amongst other papers in the Portfolio of a young Englishman with whom the Editor i6 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY had contracted an intimacy at Florence, — brief indeed, but sufficiently long to render the Catastrophe by which it terminated one of the most painful events of his life. — The literary merit of the Poem in question may not be considerable ; but worse verses are printed every day, and He was an accomplished and amiable person ; but his error was, Ovqro^ tiv fir] Ovrjra cf>pov€Lv ; — his fate is an additional proof that ' The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.' — He had framed to himself certain opinions, founded no doubt upon the truth of things, but built up to a Babel height ; they fell by their own weight, and the thoughts that were his architects became unintelligible one to the other, as men upon whom confusion of tongues has fallen. [These] verses seem to have been written as a sort of dedication of some work to have been presented to the person whom they address : but his papers afford no trac^ of such a work. — The circumstances to which [they] th^ poem allude, may easily be understood by those to whoti [the] spirit of the poem itself is intelligible : a detail *f facts, sufficiently romantic in [themselves, but] their coii- binations The melancholy charge of consigning the body of riy poor friend to the grave, was committed to me by Ms desolated family. I caused him to be buried in a spot selected by himself, and on the h (2) [The following Poem was found in the PF. of a young Englishman, who died on his passage from Leghorn to the Levant. He had bought one of the Sporades]. He was accompanied by a lady supposed to be his wife, and an effeminate-looking youth, to whom he shewed so excessive an attachment as to give rise to the suspicion that she was a woman. At his death this suspicion was confiraied ; object speedily found a refuge both from the taunts of the brute multitude, and from the of her grief in the same grave that contained her lover. — He had bought one of the Sporades, and fitted up a Saracenic castle, which accident had preserved in some repair, with simple elegance, and it was his intention to dedicate the remainder of his life to undisturbed intercourse with his companions. These verses apparently were intended as a dedication of a longer poem or series of poems. EPIPSYCHIDION 17 (3) The writer of these lines died at Florence in [January 1 820] while he was preparing for one wildest of the Sporades^ where he bought and fitted up the ruins of some old building. — His life was singular, less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which they received from his own character and feelings. The verses were apparently intended by the writer to accompany some longer poem or collection of poems, of which there [are no remnants in his] portfolio. — The editor is induced to The present poem, like the Vita Nova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates ; and to a certain other class/ it must and ought ever to remain incomprehensible. — It was evidently intended to be prefixed to a longer poem or series of poems — but among his papers there are no traces of such a collection. FRAGMENTS CONNECTED WITH EPIPSYCHIDION (1) Here, my dear friend, is a new book for you ; I have already dedicated two To other friends, one female and one male, — What you are is a thing that I must veil ; What can this be to those who praise or rail } « Free love has this, different from gold and clay. That to divide is not to take away : — Like ocean, which the general north wind breaks Into ten thousand waves, and each one makes A mirror of the moon : like some great glass, 10 Which did distort whatever form might pass. Dashed into fragments by a playful child. Which then reflects its eyes and forehead mild ; Giving for one, which it could ne'er express, A thousand images of loveliness. If I were one whom the loud world held wise, I should disdain to quote authorities In commendation of this kind of love : — Why, there is first the God in Heaven above, 1 8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Who wrote a book called Nature, — 'tis to be 20 Reviewed, I hear, in the next Quarterly ; And Socrates, the Jesus Christ of Greece, And Jesus Christ himself did never cease To urge all living things to love each other. And to forgive their mutual faults, and smother The Devil of disunion in their souls. (2) I LOVE you ! — Listen, O embodied Ray Of the great Brightness ; I must pass away While you remain, and these light words must be Tokens by which you may remember me. Start not — the thing you are is unbetrayed. If you are human ; and if but the shade Of some sublimer Spirit, (8) And as to friend or mistress, 'tis a fonnn ; Perhaps I wish you were one. Some declare You a familiar spirit, as you are ; Others with a more inhuman Hint that, though not my wife, you are a woman : — " What is the colour of your eyes and hair ? " Why, if you were a lady, it were fair The world should know. But as, I am afraid. The Quarterly would bait you if betrayed, And as it will be sport to see them stumble 10 Over all sorts of scandals, hear them mumble Their litany of curses, — some guess right. And others swear you're a Hermaphrodite, Like that sweet marble monster of both sexes. With looks so sweet and gentle that it vexes The very soul that the soul is gone Which lifted from her limbs the veil of stone — (4) It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm, A happy and auspicious bird of calm. Which rides o'er life's ever-tumultuous Ocean ; A God that broods o'er chaos in commotion ; A flower which fresh as Lapland roses are. Lifts its bold head into the world's frore air. And blooms most radiantly when others die, — - Health, hope, and youth, and brief prosperity ; EPIPSYCHIDION 19 And with the light and odour of its bloom, Shining within the dungeon and the tomb ; lo (5) If I had but a friend ! Why, I have three Even by my own confession ; there may be Some more, for what I know, for 'tis my mind To call my friends all who are wise and kind, — And these. Heaven knows, at best are very few ; But none can ever be more dear than you. Why should they be ? (6) To the oblivion whither I and thou, All loving and all lovely, hasten now With steps, ah, too unequal ! May we meet In one Elysium or one winding-sheet ! If any should be curious to discover Whether to you I am a friend or lover. Let them read Shakspeare's sonnets, taking thence A whetstone for their dull intelligence That tears and will not cut ; or let them guess How Diotima, the wise prophetess, lo Instructed the instructor, and why he Rebuked the infant spirit of melody On Agathon's sweet lips, which, as he spoke. Was as the lovely star when mom has broke The roof of darkness, in the golden dawn. Half-hidden, and yet beautiful. I'll pawn My hopes of Heaven — you know what they are worth — That the presumptuous pedagogues of Earth, If they could tell the riddle offered here Would scorn to be, or being to appear 20 What now they seem and are : but let them chide, — They have few pleasures in the world beside ; Perhaps we should be dull were we not chidden ; Paradise-fruits are sweetest when forbidden. Folly can season Wisdom, Hatred Love. (7) I WILL not, as most dedicators do. Assure myself and all the world and you. 20 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY That you are faultless : — would to God they were Who taunt me with your love ! I then should wear These heavy chains of life with a light spirit ; And would to God I were, — or even as near it As you, dear heart ! Alas ! what are we ? Clouds Driven by the wind in warring multitudes ; Which rain into the bosom of the earth, And rise again, and in our death and birth, lo And through our restless life, take as from Heaven Hues which are not our own, but which are given, And then withdrawn, and with inconstant glance Flash from the spirit to the countenance. There is a Power, a Love, a Joy, a God Which makes in mortal hearts its brief abode, A Pythian exhalation, which inspires Love, only love : a wind which o'er the wires Of the soul's giant harp There is a mood which language faints beneath ; 20 You feel it striding, as Almighty Death His bloodless steed. (8) And what is that most brief and bright delight Which rushes through the touch and through the sight, And stands before the spirit's inmost throne, A naked seraph ? None hath ever known. Its birth is darkness, and its growth desire ; Untameable and fleet and fierce as fire. Not to be touched but to be felt alone. It fills the world with glory — and is gone. (9) It floats with rainbow pinions o'er the stream Of life, which flows, like a dream Into the light of morning, to the grave As to an ocean. (10) What is that joy which serene infancy Perceives not, as the hours content them by. Each in a chain of blossoms, yet enjoys The shapes of this new world, in giant toys Wrought by the busy ever new ? Remembrance borrows Fancy's glass, to shew EPIPSYCHIDION 21 These forms more sincere Than now they are, — than then, perhaps, they were, When everything familiar seemed to be Wonderful, and the immortality lo Of this great world, which all things must inherit. Was felt as one with the awakening spirit. Unconscious of itself, and of the strange Distinctions which in its proceeding change It feels and knows, and mourns as if each were A desolation. (") Were it not a sweet refuge, Emily, For all those exiles from the dull insane Who vex this pleasant world with pride and pain, For all that band of sister-spirits known To one another by a voiceless tone ? (12) If day should part us — night will mend division. And if sleep parts us — we will meet in vision ; And if life parts us — we will mix in death. Yielding our mite of unreluctant breath. Death cannot part us — we must meet again In all, in nothing — in delight, in pain ; How, why, or when, or where — it matters not, So that we share an undivided lot. (13) [While all things seem the shadow of thy soul Harmonized by some unbeheld controuL] (U) And we will move, possessing and possest. Wherever beauty on the earth's bare breast Lies like the shadow of thy soul — till we Become one being with the world we see. ADONAIS (1821) AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS AUTHOR OF ENDYMION, HYPERION, ETC. Nuj' 8^, davCoVi Xd/xireis ^airepos ev