 |
The loss of his early papers prevents my being able to give any of the poetry of his boyhood. Of the few I give as "Early Poems", the greater part were published with "Alastor"; some of them were written previously, some at the same period. The poem beginning 'Oh, there are spirits in the air' was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth. The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames in 1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to its source. He never spent a season more tranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe pulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near Windsor Forest; and his life was spent under its shades or on the water, meditating subjects for verse. Hitherto, he had chiefly aimed at extending his political doctrines, and attempted so to do by appeals in prose essays to the people, exhorting them to claim their rights; but he had now begun to feel that the time for action was not ripe in England, and that the pen was the only instrument wherewith to prepare the way for better things.
In the scanty journals kept during those years I find a record of the books that Shelley read during several years. During the years of 1814 and 1815 the list is extensive. It includes, in Greek, Homer, Hesiod, Theocritus, the histories of Thucydides and Herodotus, and Diogenes Laertius. In Latin, Petronius, Suetonius, some of the works of Cicero, a large proportion of those of Seneca and Livy. In English, Milton's poems, Wordsworth's "Excursion", Southey's "Madoc" and "Thalaba", Locke "On the Human Understanding", Bacon's "Novum Organum". In Italian, Ariosto, Tasso, and Alfieri. In French, the "Reveries d'un Solitaire" of Rousseau. To these may be added several modern books of travel. He read few novels.
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816.
THE SUNSET.
[Written at Bishopsgate, 1816 (spring). Published in full in the "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Lines 9-20, and 28-42, appeared in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1823, under the titles, respectively, of "Sunset. From an Unpublished Poem", And "Grief. A Fragment".]
There late was One within whose subtle being, As light and wind within some delicate cloud That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, Genius and death contended. None may know The sweetness of the joy which made his breath 5 Fail, like the trances of the summer air, When, with the Lady of his love, who then First knew the unreserve of mingled being, He walked along the pathway of a field Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, 10 But to the west was open to the sky. There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points Of the far level grass and nodding flowers And the old dandelion's hoary beard, 15 And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay On the brown massy woods—and in the east The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, While the faint stars were gathering overhead.— 20 'Is it not strange, Isabel,' said the youth, 'I never saw the sun? We will walk here To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.'
That night the youth and lady mingled lay In love and sleep—but when the morning came 25 The lady found her lover dead and cold. Let none believe that God in mercy gave That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, But year by year lived on—in truth I think Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, 30 And that she did not die, but lived to tend Her aged father, were a kind of madness, If madness 'tis to be unlike the world. For but to see her were to read the tale Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts 35 Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;— Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan: Her eyelashes were worn away with tears, Her lips and cheeks were like things dead—so pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins 40 And weak articulations might be seen Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
'Inheritor of more than earth can give, 45 Passionless calm and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!' 50 This was the only moan she ever made.
NOTES: 4 death 1839; youth 1824. 22 sun? We will walk 1824; sunrise? We will wake cj. Forman. 37 Her eyes...wan Hunt, 1823; omitted 1824, 1839. 38 worn 1824; torn 1839.
***
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt's "Examiner", January 19, 1817, and with "Rosalind and Helen", 1819.]
1. The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us,—visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 5 It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening,— Like clouds in starlight widely spread,— Like memory of music fled,— 10 Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2. Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone? 15 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, 20 Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,—why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
3. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever _25 To sage or poet these responses given— Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven. Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, _30 Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone—like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, _35 Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
4. Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes— Thou—that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame! 45 Depart not as thy shadow came Depart not—lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.
5. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, _50 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; I was not heard—I saw them not— When musing deeply on the lot _55 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming,— Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! _60
6. I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine—have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers 65 Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious night— They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, 70 That thou—O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
7. The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past—there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply 80 Its calm—to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.
NOTES: _2 among 1819; amongst 1817. _14 dost 1819; doth 1817. _21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript. _37-_48 omitted Boscombe manuscript. _44 art 1817; are 1819. _76 or 1819; nor 1839.
***
MONT BLANC.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the end of the "History of a Six Weeks' Tour" published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett.]
1. The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings 5 Of waters,—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 10 Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
2. Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine— Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, _15 Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, _20 Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear—an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep _25 Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity;— Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, _30 A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound— Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange _35 To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; _40 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by _45 Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
3. Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber, _50 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.—I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep _55 Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, _60 Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene— Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread _65 And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracts her there—how hideously Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, _70 Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelope once this silent snow? None can reply—all seems eternal now. _75 The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with nature reconciled; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal _80 Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
4. The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell _85 Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower;—the bound _90 With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. _95 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And THIS, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep _100 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower _105 And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destined path, or in the mangled soil _110 Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; _115 Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves _120 Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
5. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high—the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them:—Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath _135 Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?
July 23, 1816.
NOTES: 15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817; cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839. 20 Thy 1824; The 1839. 53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson ('B.V.'). 56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839. 69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript. 79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript. 108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti (cf. lines 102, 106). 121 torrents']torrent's 1817, 1824, 1839.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
There is a voice, not understood by all, Sent from these desert-caves. It is the roar Of the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call, Plunging into the vale—it is the blast Descending on the pines—the torrents pour... _5
***
FRAGMENT: HOME.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.
***
FRAGMENT OF A GHOST STORY.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
A shovel of his ashes took From the hearth's obscurest nook, Muttering mysteries as she went. Helen and Henry knew that Granny Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5 And so they followed hard— But Helen clung to her brother's arm, And her own spasm made her shake.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1816, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled "The Sunset" was written in the spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopsgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" was conceived during his voyage round the lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the "Nouvelle Heloise" for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley's own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful.
"Mont Blanc" was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the "History of a Six Weeks' Tour, and Letters from Switzerland": 'The poem entitled "Mont Blanc" is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.'
This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch's "Lives", and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny's "Letters", the "Annals" and "Germany" of Tacitus. In French, the "History of the French Revolution" by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne's "Essays", and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke's "Essay", "Political Justice", and Coleridge's "Lay Sermon", form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, "Paradise Lost", Spenser's "Faery Queen", and "Don Quixote".
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817.
MARIANNE'S DREAM.
[Composed at Marlow, 1817. Published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1819, and reprinted in "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1. A pale Dream came to a Lady fair, And said, A boon, a boon, I pray! I know the secrets of the air, And things are lost in the glare of day, Which I can make the sleeping see, _5 If they will put their trust in me.
2. And thou shalt know of things unknown, If thou wilt let me rest between The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown Over thine eyes so dark and sheen: _10 And half in hope, and half in fright, The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
3. At first all deadly shapes were driven Tumultuously across her sleep, And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven _15 All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep; And the Lady ever looked to spy If the golden sun shone forth on high.
4. And as towards the east she turned, She saw aloft in the morning air, _20 Which now with hues of sunrise burned, A great black Anchor rising there; And wherever the Lady turned her eyes, It hung before her in the skies.
5. The sky was blue as the summer sea, 25 The depths were cloudless overhead, The air was calm as it could be, There was no sight or sound of dread, But that black Anchor floating still Over the piny eastern hill. 30
6. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear To see that Anchor ever hanging, And veiled her eyes; she then did hear The sound as of a dim low clanging, And looked abroad if she might know _35 Was it aught else, or but the flow Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
7. There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake's shock, But the very weeds that blossomed there _40 Were moveless, and each mighty rock Stood on its basis steadfastly; The Anchor was seen no more on high.
8. But piled around, with summits hid In lines of cloud at intervals, _45 Stood many a mountain pyramid Among whose everlasting walls Two mighty cities shone, and ever Through the red mist their domes did quiver.
9. On two dread mountains, from whose crest, 50 Might seem, the eagle, for her brood, Would ne'er have hung her dizzy nest, Those tower-encircled cities stood. A vision strange such towers to see, Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously, 55 Where human art could never be.
10. And columns framed of marble white, And giant fanes, dome over dome Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright With workmanship, which could not come _60 From touch of mortal instrument, Shot o'er the vales, or lustre lent From its own shapes magnificent.
11. But still the Lady heard that clang Filling the wide air far away; 65 And still the mist whose light did hang Among the mountains shook alway, So that the Lady's heart beat fast, As half in joy, and half aghast, On those high domes her look she cast. 70
12. Sudden, from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames that each with quivering tongue Licked its high domes, and overhead Among those mighty towers and fanes _75 Dropped fire, as a volcano rains Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.
13. And hark! a rush as if the deep Had burst its bonds; she looked behind And saw over the western steep 80 A raging flood descend, and wind Through that wide vale; she felt no fear, But said within herself, 'Tis clear These towers are Nature's own, and she To save them has sent forth the sea. 85
14. And now those raging billows came Where that fair Lady sate, and she Was borne towards the showering flame By the wild waves heaped tumultuously. And, on a little plank, the flow _90 Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.
15. The flames were fiercely vomited From every tower and every dome, And dreary light did widely shed O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, _95 Beneath the smoke which hung its night On the stained cope of heaven's light.
16. The plank whereon that Lady sate Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Between the peaks so desolate _100 Of the drowning mountains, in and out, As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails— While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
17. At last her plank an eddy crossed, And bore her to the city's wall, _105 Which now the flood had reached almost; It might the stoutest heart appal To hear the fire roar and hiss Through the domes of those mighty palaces.
18. The eddy whirled her round and round 110 Before a gorgeous gate, which stood Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound Its aery arch with light like blood; She looked on that gate of marble clear, With wonder that extinguished fear. 115
19. For it was filled with sculptures rarest, Of forms most beautiful and strange, Like nothing human, but the fairest Of winged shapes, whose legions range Throughout the sleep of those that are, _120 Like this same Lady, good and fair.
20. And as she looked, still lovelier grew Those marble forms;—the sculptor sure Was a strong spirit, and the hue Of his own mind did there endure _125 After the touch, whose power had braided Such grace, was in some sad change faded.
21. She looked, the flames were dim, the flood Grew tranquil as a woodland river Winding through hills in solitude; _130 Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their fair limbs to float in motion, Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
22. And their lips moved; one seemed to speak, When suddenly the mountains cracked, 135 And through the chasm the flood did break With an earth-uplifting cataract: The statues gave a joyous scream, And on its wings the pale thin Dream Lifted the Lady from the stream. 140
23. The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Waked the fair Lady from her sleep, And she arose, while from the veil Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep, And she walked about as one who knew _145 That sleep has sights as clear and true As any waking eyes can view.
NOTES: _18 golden 1819; gold 1824, 1839. _28 or 1824; nor 1839. _62 or]a cj. Rossetti. _63 its]their cj. Rossetti. _92 flames cj. Rossetti; waves 1819, 1824, 1839. _101 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839. _106 flood]flames cj. James Thomson ('B.V.'). _120 that 1819, 1824; who 1839. _135 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.
***
TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from which Mr. Locock ["Examination", etc., 1903, pages 60-62] has, with patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock's restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley's obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light of a final recension.]
1. Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; _5 Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet. Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
2. A breathless awe, like the swift change _10 Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven By the enchantment of thy strain, _15 And on my shoulders wings are woven, To follow its sublime career Beyond the mighty moons that wane Upon the verge of Nature's utmost sphere, Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear. _20
3. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul—it lingers O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings, The blood and life within those snowy fingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quick— 25 The blood is listening in my frame, And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes; My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, 30 I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
4. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song Flows on, and fills all things with melody.— Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, 35 On which, like one in trance upborne, Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, 40 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
STANZAS 1 AND 2.
As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.
1. Cease, cease—for such wild lessons madmen learn Thus to be lost, and thus to sink and die Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia turn In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie Even though the sounds its voice that were 5 Between [thy] lips are laid to sleep: Within thy breath, and on thy hair Like odour, it is [lingering] yet And from thy touch like fire doth leap— Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet— 10 Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.
2. [A deep and] breathless awe like the swift change Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers Wild sweet yet incommunicably strange Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers... _15
***
TO CONSTANTIA. [Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and printed by her in the "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. A copy exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 46.]
1. The rose that drinks the fountain dew In the pleasant air of noon, Grows pale and blue with altered hue— In the gaze of the nightly moon; For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, _5 Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
2. Such is my heart—roses are fair, And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom; _10 And fed with love, like air and dew, Its growth—
NOTES: _1 The rose]The red Rose B. _2 pleasant]fragrant B. _6 her omitted B.
***
FRAGMENT: TO ONE SINGING.
[Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has revised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock ("Examination", etc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.]
My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing, Far far away into the regions dim
Of rapture—as a boat, with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river, _5 Speeds through dark forests o'er the waters swinging...
NOTES: 3 Far far away B.; Far away 1839. 6 Speeds...swinging B.; omitted 1839.
***
A FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC.
[Published in "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
Silver key of the fountain of tears, Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild; Softest grave of a thousand fears, Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child, Is laid asleep in flowers. _5
***
ANOTHER FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC.
[Published in "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).]
No, Music, thou art not the 'food of Love.' Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self, Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.
***
'MIGHTY EAGLE'.
SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN.
[Published in 1882 ("Poetical Works of P. B. S.") by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]
Mighty eagle! thou that soarest O'er the misty mountain forest, And amid the light of morning Like a cloud of glory hiest, And when night descends defiest _5 The embattled tempests' warning!
***
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
[Published in part (5-9, 14) by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition (without title); in full 2nd edition (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley's hand are extant: two—Leigh Hunt's and Ch. Cowden Clarke's—described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry ["Poetical Works", Centenary Edition, 3 193-6]. One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley's autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley's hand is in the Harvard manuscript book.]
1. Thy country's curse is on thee, darkest crest Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm Which rends our Mother's bosom—Priestly Pest! Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
2. Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold, _5 Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown, And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold, Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.
3. And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands Watching the beck of Mutability _10 Delays to execute her high commands, And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,
4. Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul, And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb; Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl _15 To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.
5. I curse thee by a parent's outraged love, By hopes long cherished and too lately lost, By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove, By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; _20
6. By those infantine smiles of happy light, Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth, Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:
7. By those unpractised accents of young speech, _25 Which he who is a father thought to frame To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach— THOU strike the lyre of mind!—oh, grief and shame!
8. By all the happy see in children's growth— That undeveloped flower of budding years— _30 Sweetness and sadness interwoven both, Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears-
9. By all the days, under an hireling's care, Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,— O wretched ye if ever any were,— _35 Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
10. By the false cant which on their innocent lips Must hang like poison on an opening bloom, By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb— _40
11. By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror; By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt Of thine impostures, which must be their error— That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—
12. By thy complicity with lust and hate— _45 Thy thirst for tears—thy hunger after gold— The ready frauds which ever on thee wait— The servile arts in which thou hast grown old—
13. By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile— By all the arts and snares of thy black den, _50 And—for thou canst outweep the crocodile— By thy false tears—those millstones braining men—
14. By all the hate which checks a father's love— By all the scorn which kills a father's care— By those most impious hands which dared remove _55 Nature's high bounds—by thee—and by despair—
15. Yes, the despair which bids a father groan, And cry, 'My children are no longer mine— The blood within those veins may be mine own, But—Tyrant—their polluted souls are thine;— _60
16. I curse thee—though I hate thee not.—O slave! If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell Of which thou art a daemon, on thy grave This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!
NOTES: _9 Angel which aye cancelled by Shelley for Fate which ever Fa. _24 promise of a 1839, 2nd edition; promises of 1839, 1st edition. _27 lore]love Fa. _32 and saddest]the saddest Fa. _36 yet not fatherless! cancelled by Shelley for why not fatherless? Fa. _41-_44 By...built 'crossed by Shelley and marked dele by Mrs. Shelley' (Woodberry) Fa. _50 arts and snares 1839, 1st edition; snares and arts Harvard Coll. manuscript; snares and nets Fa.; acts and snares 1839, 2nd edition. _59 those]their Fa.
***
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley (1, 5, 6), "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition; in full, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition. A transcript is extant in Mrs. Shelley's hand.]
1. The billows on the beach are leaping around it, The bark is weak and frail, The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Darkly strew the gale. Come with me, thou delightful child, Come with me, though the wave is wild, _5 And the winds are loose, we must not stay, Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.
2. They have taken thy brother and sister dear, They have made them unfit for thee; 10 They have withered the smile and dried the tear Which should have been sacred to me. To a blighting faith and a cause of crime They have bound them slaves in youthly prime, And they will curse my name and thee 15 Because we fearless are and free.
3. Come thou, beloved as thou art; Another sleepeth still Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart, Which thou with joy shalt fill, _20 With fairest smiles of wonder thrown On that which is indeed our own, And which in distant lands will be The dearest playmate unto thee.
4. Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, 25 Or the priests of the evil faith; They stand on the brink of that raging river, Whose waves they have tainted with death. It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells, Around them it foams and rages and swells; 30 And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
5. Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child! The rocking of the boat thou fearest, And the cold spray and the clamour wild?— 35 There, sit between us two, thou dearest— Me and thy mother—well we know The storm at which thou tremblest so, With all its dark and hungry graves, Less cruel than the savage slaves 40 Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.
6. This hour will in thy memory Be a dream of days forgotten long. We soon shall dwell by the azure sea Of serene and golden Italy, Or Greece, the Mother of the free; 45 And I will teach thine infant tongue To call upon those heroes old In their own language, and will mould Thy growing spirit in the flame Of Grecian lore, that by such name 50 A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim!
NOTES: 1 on the beach omitted 1839, 1st edition. 8 of the law 1839, 1st edition; of law 1839, 2nd edition. 14 prime transcript; time editions 1839. 16 fearless are editions 1839; are fearless transcript. 20 shalt transcript; wilt editions 1839. 25-32 Fear...eternity omitted, transcript. See "Rosalind and Helen", lines 894-901. 33 and transcript; omitted editions 1839. 41 us transcript, 1839, 1st edition; thee 1839, 2nd edition. 42 will in transcript, 1839, 2nd edition; will sometime in 1839, 1st edition. 43 long transcript; omitted editions 1839. 48 those transcript, 1839, 1st edition; their 1839, 2nd edition.
***
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
[Published in Dr. Garnett's "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
1. The world is now our dwelling-place; Where'er the earth one fading trace Of what was great and free does keep, That is our home!... Mild thoughts of man's ungentle race 5 Shall our contented exile reap; For who that in some happy place His own free thoughts can freely chase By woods and waves can clothe his face In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. 10
2. This lament, The memory of thy grievous wrong Will fade... But genius is omnipotent To hallow... _15
***
ON FANNY GODWIN.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]
Her voice did quiver as we parted, Yet knew I not that heart was broken From which it came, and I departed Heeding not the words then spoken. Misery—O Misery, _5 This world is all too wide for thee.
***
LINES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date 'November 5th, 1817,' in "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1. That time is dead for ever, child! Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! We look on the past And stare aghast At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, _5 Of hopes which thou and I beguiled To death on life's dark river.
2. The stream we gazed on then rolled by; Its waves are unreturning; But we yet stand _10 In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee In the light of life's dim morning.
***
DEATH.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1. They die—the dead return not—Misery Sits near an open grave and calls them over, A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye— They are the names of kindred, friend and lover, Which he so feebly calls—they all are gone— _5 Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain— These tombs—alone remain.
2. Misery, my sweetest friend—oh, weep no more! Thou wilt not be consoled—I wonder not! 10 For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot Was even as bright and calm, but transitory, And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary; This most familiar scene, my pain— 15 These tombs—alone remain.
NOTE: _5 calls editions 1839; called 1824.
***
OTHO.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]
1. Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be, Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim From Brutus his own glory—and on thee Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame: Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail _5 Amid his cowering senate with thy name, Though thou and he were great—it will avail To thine own fame that Otho's should not fail.
2. 'Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel, Abjure such envious fame—great Otho died 10 Like thee—he sanctified his country's steel, At once the tyrant and tyrannicide, In his own blood—a deed it was to bring Tears from all men—though full of gentle pride, Such pride as from impetuous love may spring, 15 That will not be refused its offering.
NOTE: _13 bring cj. Garnett; buy 1839, 1st edition; wring cj. Rossetti.
***
FRAGMENTS SUPPOSED TO BE PARTS OF OTHO.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862,—where, however, only the fragment numbered 2 is assigned to "Otho". Forman (1876) connects all three fragments with that projected poem.]
1. Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil, Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind, Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur _5 Chastened by deathful victory now, and find Foundations in this foulest age, and stir Me whom they cheer to be their minister.
2. Dark is the realm of grief: but human things Those may not know who cannot weep for them. _10
...
3. Once more descend The shadows of my soul upon mankind, For to those hearts with which they never blend, Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, _15 Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
...
***
'O THAT A CHARIOT OF CLOUD WERE MINE'.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
O that a chariot of cloud were mine! Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air, When the moon over the ocean's line Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair. O that a chariot of cloud were mine! _5 I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind To the mountain peak and the rocky lake, And the...
***
FRAGMENT: TO A FRIEND RELEASED FROM PRISON.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast With feelings which make rapture pain resemble, Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast, I thank thee—let the tyrant keep 5 His chains and tears, yea, let him weep With rage to see thee freshly risen, Like strength from slumber, from the prison, In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. 10
NOTE: For the metre see Fragment: "A Gentle Story" (A.C. Bradley.)
***
FRAGMENT: SATAN BROKEN LOOSE.
[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870.]
A golden-winged Angel stood Before the Eternal Judgement-seat: His looks were wild, and Devils' blood Stained his dainty hands and feet. The Father and the Son _5 Knew that strife was now begun. They knew that Satan had broken his chain, And with millions of daemons in his train, Was ranging over the world again. Before the Angel had told his tale, _10 A sweet and a creeping sound Like the rushing of wings was heard around; And suddenly the lamps grew pale— The lamps, before the Archangels seven, That burn continually in Heaven. _15
***
FRAGMENT: "IGNICULUS DESIDERII".
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 63.]
To thirst and find no fill—to wail and wander With short unsteady steps—to pause and ponder— To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle; To nurse the image of unfelt caresses _5 Till dim imagination just possesses The half-created shadow, then all the night Sick...
NOTES: _2 unsteady B.; uneasy 1839, 1st edition. _7, _8 then...Sick B.; wanting, 1839, 1st edition.
***
FRAGMENT: "AMOR AETERNUS".
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]
Wealth and dominion fade into the mass Of the great sea of human right and wrong, When once from our possession they must pass; But love, though misdirected, is among The things which are immortal, and surpass _5 All that frail stuff which will be—or which was.
***
FRAGMENT: THOUGHTS COME AND GO IN SOLITUDE.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]
My thoughts arise and fade in solitude, The verse that would invest them melts away Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day: How beautiful they were, how firm they stood, Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl! _5
***
A HATE-SONG.
[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870.]
A hater he came and sat by a ditch, And he took an old cracked lute; And he sang a song which was more of a screech 'Gainst a woman that was a brute.
***
LINES TO A CRITIC.
[Published by Hunt in "The Liberal", No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in "Posthumous Poems", 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]
1. Honey from silkworms who can gather, Or silk from the yellow bee? The grass may grow in winter weather As soon as hate in me.
2. Hate men who cant, and men who pray, _5 And men who rail like thee; An equal passion to repay They are not coy like me.
3. Or seek some slave of power and gold To be thy dear heart's mate; _10 Thy love will move that bigot cold Sooner than me, thy hate.
4. A passion like the one I prove Cannot divided be; I hate thy want of truth and love— _15 How should I then hate thee?
***
OZYMANDIAS.
[Published by Hunt in "The Examiner", January, 1818. Reprinted with "Rosalind and Helen", 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 46.]
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
NOTE: _9 these words appear]this legend clear B.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The "Revolt of Islam", written and printed, was a great effort—"Rosalind and Helen" was begun—and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.
In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley's mind, and desire to trace its workings.
He projected also translating the "Hymns" of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already published in the "Posthumous Poems". His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the "Hymns" of Homer and the "Iliad", he read the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the "Symposium" of Plato, and Arrian's "Historia Indica". In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings I find also mentioned the "Faerie Queen"; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore and Byron.
His life was now spent more in thought than action—he had lost the eager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the benefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was far from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy or politics or taste were the subjects of conversation. He was playful; and indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others—not in bitterness, but in sport. The author of "Nightmare Abbey" seized on some points of his character and some habits of his life when he painted Scythrop. He was not addicted to 'port or madeira,' but in youth he had read of 'Illuminati and Eleutherarchs,' and believed that he possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of men and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and adversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did with physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats, and watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness—or repeating with wild energy "The Ancient Mariner", and Southey's "Old Woman of Berkeley"; but those who do will recollect that it was in such, and in the creations of his own fancy when that was most daring and ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and disappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life.
No words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were torn from him. In his first resentment against the Chancellor, on the passing of the decree, he had written a curse, in which there breathes, besides haughty indignation, all the tenderness of a father's love, which could imagine and fondly dwell upon its loss and the consequences.
At one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had said some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be permitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared that our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to resolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything, and to escape with his child; and I find some unfinished stanzas addressed to this son, whom afterwards we lost at Rome, written under the idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to preserve him. This poem, as well as the one previously quoted, were not written to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the spontaneous outbursts of a man who brooded over his wrongs and woes, and was impelled to shed the grace of his genius over the uncontrollable emotions of his heart. I ought to observe that the fourth verse of this effusion is introduced in "Rosalind and Helen". When afterwards this child died at Rome, he wrote, a propos of the English burying-ground in that city: 'This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent's heart are now prophetic; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body, the other crushes the affections.'
***
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818.
TO THE NILE.
['Found by Mr. Townshend Meyer among the papers of Leigh Hunt, [and] published in the "St. James's Magazine" for March, 1876.' (Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B.; "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", Library Edition, 1876, volume 3 page 410.) First included among Shelley's poetical works in Mr. Forman's Library Edition, where a facsimile of the manuscript is given. Composed February 4, 1818. See "Complete Works of John Keats", edition H. Buxton Forman, Glasgow, 1901, volume 4 page 76.]
Month after month the gathered rains descend Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells, And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. 5 Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells By Nile's aereal urn, with rapid spells Urging those waters to their mighty end. O'er Egypt's land of Memory floods are level And they are thine, O Nile—and well thou knowest 10 That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest. Beware, O Man—for knowledge must to thee, Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
***
PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES.
[Composed May 4, 1818. Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, which supplies the last word of the fragment.]
Listen, listen, Mary mine, To the whisper of the Apennine, It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, Or like the sea on a northern shore, Heard in its raging ebb and flow 5 By the captives pent in the cave below. The Apennine in the light of day Is a mighty mountain dim and gray, Which between the earth and sky doth lay; But when night comes, a chaos dread 10 On the dim starlight then is spread, And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm, Shrouding...
***
THE PAST.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1. Wilt thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, _5 And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.
2. Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, Memories that make the heart a tomb, Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, _10 And with ghastly whispers tell That joy, once lost, is pain.
***
TO MARY —.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
O Mary dear, that you were here With your brown eyes bright and clear. And your sweet voice, like a bird Singing love to its lone mate In the ivy bower disconsolate; 5 Voice the sweetest ever heard! And your brow more... Than the ... sky Of this azure Italy. Mary dear, come to me soon, 10 I am not well whilst thou art far; As sunset to the sphered moon, As twilight to the western star, Thou, beloved, art to me.
O Mary dear, that you were here; _15 The Castle echo whispers 'Here!'
***
ON A FADED VIOLET.
[Published by Hunt, "Literary Pocket-Book", 1821. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Again reprinted, with several variants, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1821. A transcript is extant in a letter from Shelley to Sophia Stacey, dated March 7, 1820.]
1. The odour from the flower is gone Which like thy kisses breathed on me; The colour from the flower is flown Which glowed of thee and only thee!
2. A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, _5 It lies on my abandoned breast, And mocks the heart which yet is warm, With cold and silent rest.
3. I weep,—my tears revive it not! I sigh,—it breathes no more on me; _10 Its mute and uncomplaining lot Is such as mine should be.
NOTES: 1 odour]colour 1839. 2 kisses breathed]sweet eyes smiled 1839. 3 colour]odour 1839. 4 glowed]breathed 1839. 5 shrivelled]withered 1839. 8 cold and silent all editions; its cold, silent Stacey manuscript.
***
LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.
OCTOBER, 1818.
[Composed at Este, October, 1818. Published with "Rosalind and Helen", 1819. Amongst the late Mr. Fredk. Locker-Lampson's collections at Rowfant there is a manuscript of the lines (167-205) on Byron, interpolated after the completion of the poem.]
Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on— Day and night, and night and day, 5 Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track: Whilst above the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10 And behind the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep; 15 And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore 20 Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave 25 To the haven of the grave. What, if there no friends will greet; What, if there no heart will meet His with love's impatient beat; Wander wheresoe'er he may, 30 Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress In friendship's smile, in love's caress? Then 'twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no: 35 Senseless is the breast, and cold, Which relenting love would fold; Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill; Every little living nerve 40 That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortured lips and brow, Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December's bough.
On the beach of a northern sea _45 Which tempests shake eternally, As once the wretch there lay to sleep, Lies a solitary heap, One white skull and seven dry bones, On the margin of the stones, _50 Where a few gray rushes stand, Boundaries of the sea and land: Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews, as they sail O'er the billows of the gale; _55 Or the whirlwind up and down Howling, like a slaughtered town, When a king in glory rides Through the pomp of fratricides: Those unburied bones around _60 There is many a mournful sound; There is no lament for him, Like a sunless vapour, dim, Who once clothed with life and thought What now moves nor murmurs not. _65
Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide Agony: To such a one this morn was led, My bark by soft winds piloted: 'Mid the mountains Euganean 70 I stood listening to the paean With which the legioned rooks did hail The sun's uprise majestical; Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar 75 Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, Flecked with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky, So their plumes of purple grain, 80 Starred with drops of golden rain, Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes On the morning's fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail, 85 And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow, down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright, and clear, and still, Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea _90 The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath Day's azure eyes Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, _95 A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, _100 Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, _105 Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; _110 As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City, thou hast been 115 Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier. 120 A less drear ruin then than now, With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne, among the waves Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 125 Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace gate 130 With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of Ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way, Wandering at the close of day, 135 Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death 140 O'er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold Quivering through aereal gold, As I now behold them here, Would imagine not they were _145 Sepulchres, where human forms, Like pollution-nourished worms, To the corpse of greatness cling, Murdered, and now mouldering: But if Freedom should awake _150 In her omnipotence, and shake From the Celtic Anarch's hold All the keys of dungeons cold, Where a hundred cities lie Chained like thee, ingloriously, _155 Thou and all thy sister band Might adorn this sunny land, Twining memories of old time With new virtues more sublime; If not, perish thou and they!— _160 Clouds which stain truth's rising day By her sun consumed away— Earth can spare ye: while like flowers, In the waste of years and hours, From your dust new nations spring _165 With more kindly blossoming.
Perish—let there only be Floating o'er thy hearthless sea As the garment of thy sky Clothes the world immortally, 170 One remembrance, more sublime Than the tattered pall of time, Which scarce hides thy visage wan;— That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, 175 Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee; and Ocean Welcomed him with such emotion That its joy grew his, and sprung 180 From his lips like music flung O'er a mighty thunder-fit, Chastening terror:—what though yet Poesy's unfailing River, Which through Albion winds forever 185 Lashing with melodious wave Many a sacred Poet's grave, Mourn its latest nursling fled? What though thou with all thy dead Scarce can for this fame repay 190 Aught thine own? oh, rather say Though thy sins and slaveries foul Overcloud a sunlike soul? As the ghost of Homer clings Round Scamander's wasting springs; 195 As divinest Shakespeare's might Fills Avon and the world with light Like omniscient power which he Imaged 'mid mortality; As the love from Petrarch's urn, 200 Yet amid yon hills doth burn, A quenchless lamp by which the heart Sees things unearthly;—so thou art, Mighty spirit—so shall be The City that did refuge thee. 205
Lo, the sun floats up the sky Like thought-winged Liberty, Till the universal light Seems to level plain and height; From the sea a mist has spread, 210 And the beams of morn lie dead On the towers of Venice now, Like its glory long ago. By the skirts of that gray cloud Many-domed Padua proud 215 Stands, a peopled solitude, 'Mid the harvest-shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow 220 With the purple vintage strain, Heaped upon the creaking wain, That the brutal Celt may swill Drunken sleep with savage will; And the sickle to the sword 225 Lies unchanged, though many a lord, Like a weed whose shade is poison, Overgrows this region's foison, Sheaves of whom are ripe to come To destruction's harvest-home: 230 Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow, Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe That love or reason cannot change The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 235
Padua, thou within whose walls Those mute guests at festivals, Son and Mother, Death and Sin, Played at dice for Ezzelin, Till Death cried, "I win, I win!" 240 And Sin cursed to lose the wager, But Death promised, to assuage her, That he would petition for Her to be made Vice-Emperor, When the destined years were o'er, 245 Over all between the Po And the eastern Alpine snow, Under the mighty Austrian. Sin smiled so as Sin only can, And since that time, ay, long before, 250 Both have ruled from shore to shore,— That incestuous pair, who follow Tyrants as the sun the swallow, As Repentance follows Crime, And as changes follow Time. 255
In thine halls the lamp of learning, Padua, now no more is burning; Like a meteor, whose wild way Is lost over the grave of day, It gleams betrayed and to betray: _260 Once remotest nations came To adore that sacred flame, When it lit not many a hearth On this cold and gloomy earth: Now new fires from antique light _265 Spring beneath the wide world's might; But their spark lies dead in thee, Trampled out by Tyranny. As the Norway woodman quells, In the depth of piny dells, _270 One light flame among the brakes, While the boundless forest shakes, And its mighty trunks are torn By the fire thus lowly born: The spark beneath his feet is dead, _275 He starts to see the flames it fed Howling through the darkened sky With a myriad tongues victoriously, And sinks down in fear: so thou, O Tyranny, beholdest now _280 Light around thee, and thou hearest The loud flames ascend, and fearest: Grovel on the earth; ay, hide In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now: _285 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved star Mingling light and fragrance, far _290 From the curved horizon's bound To the point of Heaven's profound, Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie Underneath, the leaves unsodden _295 Where the infant Frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright print is gleaming yet; And the red and golden vines, Piercing with their trellised lines _300 The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from this hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line _305 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; _310 And my spirit which so long Darkened this swift stream of song,— Interpenetrated lie By the glory of the sky: Be it love, light, harmony, _315 Odour, or the soul of all Which from Heaven like dew doth fall, Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon _320 Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister Half the crimson light she brings _325 From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like winged winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies Mid remembered agonies, _330 The frail bark of this lone being) Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be 335 In the sea of Life and Agony: Other spirits float and flee O'er that gulf: even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folded wings they waiting sit 340 For my bark, to pilot it To some calm and blooming cove, Where for me, and those I love, May a windless bower be built, Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345 In a dell mid lawny hills, Which the wild sea-murmur fills, And soft sunshine, and the sound Of old forests echoing round, And the light and smell divine 350 Of all flowers that breathe and shine: We may live so happy there, That the Spirits of the Air, Envying us, may even entice To our healing Paradise 355 The polluting multitude; But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360 Under which the bright sea heaves; While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies With its own deep melodies; 365 And the love which heals all strife Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood, They, not it, would change; and soon 370 Every sprite beneath the moon Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.
NOTES: _54 seamews 1819; seamew's Rossetti. _115 Sun-girt]Sea-girt cj. Palgrave. _165 From your dust new 1819; From thy dust shall Rowfant manuscript (heading of lines 167-205). _175 songs 1819; sons cj. Forman. _278 a 1819; wanting, 1839.
***
SCENE FROM 'TASSO'.
[Composed, 1818. Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
MADDALO, A COURTIER. MALPIGLIO, A POET. PIGNA, A MINISTER. ALBANO, AN USHER.
MADDALO: No access to the Duke! You have not said That the Count Maddalo would speak with him?
PIGNA: Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna Waits with state papers for his signature?
MALPIGLIO: The Lady Leonora cannot know _5 That I have written a sonnet to her fame, In which I ... Venus and Adonis. You should not take my gold and serve me not.
ALBANO: In truth I told her, and she smiled and said, 'If I am Venus, thou, coy Poesy, _10 Art the Adonis whom I love, and he The Erymanthian boar that wounded him.' O trust to me, Signor Malpiglio, Those nods and smiles were favours worth the zechin.
MALPIGLIO: The words are twisted in some double sense _15 That I reach not: the smiles fell not on me.
PIGNA: How are the Duke and Duchess occupied?
ALBANO: Buried in some strange talk. The Duke was leaning, His finger on his brow, his lips unclosed. The Princess sate within the window-seat, _20 And so her face was hid; but on her knee Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow, And quivering—young Tasso, too, was there.
MADDALO: Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven Thou drawest down smiles—they did not rain on thee. _25
MALPIGLIO: Would they were parching lightnings for his sake On whom they fell!
***
SONG FOR 'TASSO'.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1. I loved—alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, _5 Of all that men had thought before. And all that Nature shows, and more.
2. And still I love and still I think, But strangely, for my heart can drink The dregs of such despair, and live, _10 And love;... And if I think, my thoughts come fast, I mix the present with the past, And each seems uglier than the last.
3. Sometimes I see before me flee 15 A silver spirit's form, like thee, O Leonora, and I sit ...still watching it, Till by the grated casement's ledge It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge 20 Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.
***
INVOCATION TO MISERY.
[Published by Medwin, "The Athenaeum", September 8, 1832. Reprinted (as "Misery, a Fragment") by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of 1839. A pencil copy of this poem is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 38. The readings of this copy are indicated by the letter B. in the footnotes.]
1. Come, be happy!—sit near me, Shadow-vested Misery: Coy, unwilling, silent bride, Mourning in thy robe of pride, Desolation—deified! _5
2. Come, be happy!—sit near me: Sad as I may seem to thee, I am happier far than thou, Lady, whose imperial brow Is endiademed with woe. _10
3. Misery! we have known each other, Like a sister and a brother Living in the same lone home, Many years—we must live some Hours or ages yet to come. _15
4. 'Tis an evil lot, and yet Let us make the best of it; If love can live when pleasure dies, We two will love, till in our eyes This heart's Hell seem Paradise. _20
5. Come, be happy!—lie thee down On the fresh grass newly mown, Where the Grasshopper doth sing Merrily—one joyous thing In a world of sorrowing! _25
6. There our tent shall be the willow, And mine arm shall be thy pillow; Sounds and odours, sorrowful Because they once were sweet, shall lull Us to slumber, deep and dull. _30
7. Ha! thy frozen pulses flutter With a love thou darest not utter. Thou art murmuring—thou art weeping— Is thine icy bosom leaping While my burning heart lies sleeping? _35
8. Kiss me;—oh! thy lips are cold: Round my neck thine arms enfold— They are soft, but chill and dead; And thy tears upon my head Burn like points of frozen lead. _40
9. Hasten to the bridal bed— Underneath the grave 'tis spread: In darkness may our love be hid, Oblivion be our coverlid— We may rest, and none forbid. _45
10. Clasp me till our hearts be grown Like two shadows into one; Till this dreadful transport may Like a vapour fade away, In the sleep that lasts alway. _50
11. We may dream, in that long sleep, That we are not those who weep; E'en as Pleasure dreams of thee, Life-deserting Misery, Thou mayst dream of her with me. _55
12. Let us laugh, and make our mirth, At the shadows of the earth, As dogs bay the moonlight clouds, Which, like spectres wrapped in shrouds, Pass o'er night in multitudes. _60
13. All the wide world, beside us, Show like multitudinous Puppets passing from a scene; What but mockery can they mean, Where I am—where thou hast been? _65
NOTES: _1 near B., 1839; by 1832. _8 happier far]merrier yet B. _15 Hours or]Years and 1832. _17 best]most 1832. _19 We two will]We will 1832. _27 mine arm shall be thy B., 1839; thine arm shall be my 1832. _33 represented by asterisks, 1832. _34, _35 Thou art murmuring, thou art weeping, Whilst my burning bosom's leaping 1832; Was thine icy bosom leaping While my burning heart was sleeping B. _40 frozen 1832, 1839, B.; molten cj. Forman. _44 be]is B. _47 shadows]lovers 1832, B. _59 which B., 1839; that 1832. _62 Show]Are 1832, B. _63 Puppets passing]Shadows shifting 1832; Shadows passing B. _64, _65 So B.: What but mockery may they mean? Where am I?—Where thou hast been 1832.
***
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824, where it is dated 'December, 1818.' A draft of stanza 1 is amongst the Boscombe manuscripts. (Garnett).]
1. The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, _5 Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.
2. I see the Deep's untrampled floor 10 With green and purple seaweeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone,— The lightning of the noontide ocean 15 Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
3. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, 20 Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned— Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround— 25 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;— To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
4. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, 30 And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 35 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
5. Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; 40 They might lament—for I am one Whom men love not,—and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 45
NOTES: 4 might Boscombe manuscript, Medwin 1847; light 1824, 1839. 5 The...light Boscombe manuscript, 1839, Medwin 1847; omitted, 1824. moist earth Boscombe manuscript; moist air 1839; west wind Medwin 1847. 17 measured 1824; mingled 1847. 18 did any heart now 1824; if any heart could Medwin 1847. 31 the 1824; this Medwin 1847. 36 dying 1824; outworn Medwin 1847.
***
THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE.
[Published in part (1-67) by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; the remainder (68-70) by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,
One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;— _5 And as a vale is watered by a flood,
Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie
Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, _10 The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close
Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale _15
Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness
Of the circumfluous waters,—every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, _20 And every wind of the mute atmosphere,
And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave
Which is its cradle—ever from below _25 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow
Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, _30
Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish!—and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night
Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, _35 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm
Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love In every soul but one.
...
And so this man returned with axe and saw _40 At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature's gentle law
Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene _45
With jagged leaves,—and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep—or weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops
Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness;— _50 Around the cradles of the birds aloft
They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss,
Make a green space among the silent bowers, _55 Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers
All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion—and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, _60
Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,
Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain _65 One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again.
...
The world is full of Woodmen who expel Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, And vex the nightingales in every dell. _70
NOTE: _8 —or as a tuberose cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
MARENGHI. (This fragment refers to an event told in Sismondi's "Histoire des Republiques Italiennes", which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province.—[MRS. SHELLEY'S NOTE, 1824.])
[Published in part (stanzas 7-15.) by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; stanzas 1-28 by W.M. Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870. The Boscombe manuscript—evidently a first draft—from which (through Dr. Garnett) Rossetti derived the text of 1870 is now at the Bodleian, and has recently been collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, to whom the enlarged and amended text here printed is owing. The substitution, in title and text, of "Marenghi" for "Mazenghi" (1824) is due to Rossetti. Here as elsewhere in the footnotes B. = the Bodleian manuscript.]
1. Let those who pine in pride or in revenge, Or think that ill for ill should be repaid, Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade, Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn _5 Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.
2. A massy tower yet overhangs the town, A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...
...
3. Another scene are wise Etruria knew Its second ruin through internal strife _10 And tyrants through the breach of discord threw The chain which binds and kills. As death to life, As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.
4. In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold _15 Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn: A Sacrament more holy ne'er of old Etrurians mingled mid the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests, when...
5. And reconciling factions wet their lips _20 With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit Undarkened by their country's last eclipse...
...
6. Was Florence the liberticide? that band Of free and glorious brothers who had planted, Like a green isle mid Aethiopian sand, _25 A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted Of many impious faiths—wise, just—do they, Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' prey?
7. O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory, Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour; _30 Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender:— The light-invested angel Poesy Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.
8. And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught 35 By loftiest meditations; marble knew The sculptor's fearless soul—and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom grew. And more than all, heroic, just, sublime, Thou wart among the false...was this thy crime? 40
9. Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine Of direst weeds hangs garlanded—the snake Inhabits its wrecked palaces;—in thine A beast of subtler venom now doth make Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown, _45 And thus thy victim's fate is as thine own.
10. The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare, And love and freedom blossom but to wither; And good and ill like vines entangled are, So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;— _50 Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi's sake.
10a. [Albert] Marenghi was a Florentine; If he had wealth, or children, or a wife Or friends, [or farm] or cherished thoughts which twine _55 The sights and sounds of home with life's own life Of these he was despoiled and Florence sent...
...
11. No record of his crime remains in story, But if the morning bright as evening shone, _60 It was some high and holy deed, by glory Pursued into forgetfulness, which won From the blind crowd he made secure and free The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy.
12. For when by sound of trumpet was declared A price upon his life, and there was set _65 A penalty of blood on all who shared So much of water with him as might wet His lips, which speech divided not—he went Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.
13. Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast, He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, 70 Month after month endured; it was a feast Whene'er he found those globes of deep-red gold Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear, Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. 75
14. And in the roofless huts of vast morasses, Deserted by the fever-stricken serf, All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf, And where the huge and speckled aloe made, _80 Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,—
15. He housed himself. There is a point of strand Near Vado's tower and town; and on one side The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, _85 And on the other, creeps eternally, Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea.
16. Here the earth's breath is pestilence, and few But things whose nature is at war with life— Snakes and ill worms—endure its mortal dew. The trophies of the clime's victorious strife— _90 And ringed horns which the buffalo did wear, And the wolf's dark gray scalp who tracked him there.
17. And at the utmost point...stood there The relics of a reed-inwoven cot, _95 Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was hot When he was cold. The birds that were his grave Fell dead after their feast in Vado's wave.
18. There must have burned within Marenghi's breast 100 That fire, more warm and bright than life and hope, (Which to the martyr makes his dungeon... More joyous than free heaven's majestic cope To his oppressor), warring with decay,— Or he could ne'er have lived years, day by day. 105
19. Nor was his state so lone as you might think. He had tamed every newt and snake and toad, And every seagull which sailed down to drink Those freshes ere the death-mist went abroad. And each one, with peculiar talk and play, _110 Wiled, not untaught, his silent time away.
20. And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at night Came licking with blue tongues his veined feet; And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, In many entangled figures quaint and sweet _115 To some enchanted music they would dance— Until they vanished at the first moon-glance.
21. He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed The summer dew-globes in the golden dawn; And, ere the hoar-frost languished, he could read _120 Its pictured path, as on bare spots of lawn Its delicate brief touch in silver weaves The likeness of the wood's remembered leaves.
22. And many a fresh Spring morn would he awaken— While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron _125 Quivering in crimson fire, the peaks unshaken Of mountains and blue isles which did environ With air-clad crags that plain of land and sea,— And feel ... liberty.
23. And in the moonless nights when the dun ocean 130 Heaved underneath wide heaven, star-impearled, Starting from dreams... Communed with the immeasurable world; And felt his life beyond his limbs dilated, Till his mind grew like that it contemplated. 135
24. His food was the wild fig and strawberry; The milky pine-nuts which the autumn-blast Shakes into the tall grass; or such small fry As from the sea by winter-storms are cast; And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found _140 Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground.
25. And so were kindled powers and thoughts which made His solitude less dark. When memory came (For years gone by leave each a deepening shade), His spirit basked in its internal flame,— _145 As, when the black storm hurries round at night, The fisher basks beside his red firelight.
26. Yet human hopes and cares and faiths and errors, Like billows unawakened by the wind, Slept in Marenghi still; but that all terrors, _150 Weakness, and doubt, had withered in his mind. His couch...
...
27. And, when he saw beneath the sunset's planet A black ship walk over the crimson ocean,— Its pennon streaming on the blasts that fan it, _155 Its sails and ropes all tense and without motion, Like the dark ghost of the unburied even Striding athwart the orange-coloured heaven,—
28. The thought of his own kind who made the soul Which sped that winged shape through night and day,— _160 The thought of his own country...
...
NOTES: _3 Who B.; Or 1870. _6 Marenghi's 1870; Mazenghi's B. _7 town 1870; sea B. _8 ruined 1870; squalid B. ('the whole line is cancelled,' Locock). _11 threw 1870; cancelled, B. _17 A Sacrament more B.; At Sacrament: more 1870. _18 mid B.; with 1870. _19 forests when... B.; forests. 1870. _23, _24 that band Of free and glorious brothers who had 1870; omitted, B. _25 a 1870; one B. _27 wise, just—do they 1870; omitted, B. _28 Does 1870; Doth B. prey 1870; spoil B. _33 angel 1824; Herald [?] B. _34 to welcome thee 1824; cancelled for... by thee B. _42 direst 1824; Desert B. _45 sits amid 1824 amid cancelled for soils (?) B. _53-_57 Albert...sent B.; omitted 1824, 1870. Albert cancelled B.: Pietro is the correct name. _53 Marenghi]Mazenghi B. _55 farm doubtful: perh. fame (Locock). _62 he 1824; thus B. _70 Amid the mountains 1824; Mid desert mountains [?] B. _71 toil, and cold]cold and toil editions 1824, 1839. _92, _93 And... there B. (see Editor's Note); White bones, and locks of dun and yellow hair, And ringed horns which buffaloes did wear— 1870. _94 at the utmost point 1870; cancelled for when (where?) B. _95 reed B.; weed 1870. _99 after B.; upon 1870. _100 burned within Marenghi's breast B.; lived within Marenghi's heart 1870. _101 and B.; or 1870. _103 free B.; the 1870. _109 freshes B.; omitted, 1870. _118 by 1870; with B. _119 dew-globes B.; dewdrops 1870. _120 languished B.; vanished 1870. _121 path, as on [bare] B.; footprints, as on 1870. _122 silver B.; silence 1870. _130 And in the moonless nights 1870; cancelled, B. dun B.; dim 1870. _131 Heaved 1870; cancelled, B. wide B.; the 1870. star-impearled B.; omitted, 1870. _132 Starting from dreams 1870; cancelled for He B. _137 autumn B.; autumnal 1870. _138 or B.; and 1870. _155 pennon B.; pennons 1870. _158 athwart B.; across 1870.
***
SONNET.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Our text is that of the "Poetical Works", 1839.]
Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave 5 Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. I knew one who had lifted it—he sought, For his lost heart was tender, things to love But found them not, alas! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. 10 Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
NOTES: 6 Their...drear 1839; The shadows, which the world calls substance, there 1824. 7 who had lifted 1839; who lifted 1824.
***
FRAGMENT: TO BYRON.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm, Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?
***
FRAGMENT: APOSTROPHE TO SILENCE.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. A transcript by Mrs. Shelley, given to Charles Cowden Clarke, presents one or two variants.]
Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy Are swallowed up—yet spare me, Spirit, pity me, Until the sounds I hear become my soul, _5 And it has left these faint and weary limbs, To track along the lapses of the air This wandering melody until it rests Among lone mountains in some...
NOTES: 4 Spirit 1862; O Spirit C.C.C. manuscript. 8 This wandering melody 1862; These wandering melodies... C.C.C. manuscript.
***
FRAGMENT: THE LAKE'S MARGIN.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
The fierce beasts of the woods and wildernesses Track not the steps of him who drinks of it; For the light breezes, which for ever fleet Around its margin, heap the sand thereon.
***
FRAGMENT: 'MY HEAD IS WILD WITH WEEPING'.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
My head is wild with weeping for a grief Which is the shadow of a gentle mind. I walk into the air (but no relief To seek,—or haply, if I sought, to find; It came unsought);—to wonder that a chief _5 Among men's spirits should be cold and blind.
NOTE: _4 find cj. A.C. Bradley.
***
FRAGMENT: THE VINE-SHROUD.
[Published by W.M. Rossetti, 1870.]
Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee; For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below The rotting bones of dead antiquity.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1818, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
We often hear of persons disappointed by a first visit to Italy. This was not Shelley's case. The aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its majestic storms, of the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the noble marble-built cities, enchanted him. The sight of the works of art was full enjoyment and wonder. He had not studied pictures or statues before; he now did so with the eye of taste, that referred not to the rules of schools, but to those of Nature and truth. The first entrance to Rome opened to him a scene of remains of antique grandeur that far surpassed his expectations; and the unspeakable beauty of Naples and its environs added to the impression he received of the transcendent and glorious beauty of Italy.
Our winter was spent at Naples. Here he wrote the fragments of "Marenghi" and "The Woodman and the Nightingale", which he afterwards threw aside. At this time, Shelley suffered greatly in health. He put himself under the care of a medical man, who promised great things, and made him endure severe bodily pain, without any good results. Constant and poignant physical suffering exhausted him; and though he preserved the appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our wanderings in the environs of Naples, and our excursions on its sunny sea, yet many hours were passed when his thoughts, shadowed by illness, became gloomy,—and then he escaped to solitude, and in verses, which he hid from fear of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too natural bursts of discontent and sadness. One looks back with unspeakable regret and gnawing remorse to such periods; fancying that, had one been more alive to the nature of his feelings, and more attentive to soothe them, such would not have existed. And yet, enjoying as he appeared to do every sight or influence of earth or sky, it was difficult to imagine that any melancholy he showed was aught but the effect of the constant pain to which he was a martyr.
We lived in utter solitude. And such is often not the nurse of cheerfulness; for then, at least with those who have been exposed to adversity, the mind broods over its sorrows too intently; while the society of the enlightened, the witty, and the wise, enables us to forget ourselves by making us the sharers of the thoughts of others, which is a portion of the philosophy of happiness. Shelley never liked society in numbers,—it harassed and wearied him; but neither did he like loneliness, and usually, when alone, sheltered himself against memory and reflection in a book. But, with one or two whom he loved, he gave way to wild and joyous spirits, or in more serious conversation expounded his opinions with vivacity and eloquence. If an argument arose, no man ever argued better. He was clear, logical, and earnest, in supporting his own views; attentive, patient, and impartial, while listening to those on the adverse side. Had not a wall of prejudice been raised at this time between him and his countrymen, how many would have sought the acquaintance of one whom to know was to love and to revere! How many of the more enlightened of his contemporaries have since regretted that they did not seek him! how very few knew his worth while he lived! and, of those few, several were withheld by timidity or envy from declaring their sense of it. But no man was ever more enthusiastically loved—more looked up to, as one superior to his fellows in intellectual endowments and moral worth, by the few who knew him well, and had sufficient nobleness of soul to appreciate his superiority. His excellence is now acknowledged; but, even while admitted, not duly appreciated. For who, except those who were acquainted with him, can imagine his unwearied benevolence, his generosity, his systematic forbearance? And still less is his vast superiority in intellectual attainments sufficiently understood—his sagacity, his clear understanding, his learning, his prodigious memory. All these as displayed in conversation, were known to few while he lived, and are now silent in the tomb: |
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