PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

 

*

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

 

I

 

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,—

Like aught that for its grace may be

Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

 

II

 

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
      With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
      Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone?
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,

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?

 

III

 

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
      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,

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,

Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.

 

IV

 

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,
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!

Depart not as thy shadow came,

Depart not—lest the grave should be,

Like life and fear, a dark reality.

 

V

 

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
      Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
      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

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!

 

VI

 

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

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,

That thou—O awful Loveliness,
Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.

 

VII

 

The day becomes more solemn and serene

When noon is past—there is a harmony

In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

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

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.

 

*

Mont Blanc

Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni.

 

I

 

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

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

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

 

II

 

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,

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.

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

Of the aethereal 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,
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
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;
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
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!

 

III

 

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber,
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
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,
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
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 tracks her there—how hideously
Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,

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 envelop once this silent snow?

None can reply—all seems eternal now.

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

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.

 

IV

 

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,

Ocean, and all the living things that dwell

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

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.

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

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

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

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;

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

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,

Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

 

V

 

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,

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

Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home

The voiceless lightning in these solitudes

Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods

Oyer the snow. The secret Strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome

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?

 

*

Ozymandias

 

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,

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:

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.

 

*

Ode to the West Wind

 

I

 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

 

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

 

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill: 1

 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

 

II

 

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

 

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine aery surge,

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

 

III

 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

 

IV

 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

 

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee; tameless, and swift, and proud.

 

V

 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

 

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Seet though in sadness. Be thou spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be though me, impetuous one!

 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 

*

To a Skylark

 

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

      Bird thou never wert,

That from Heaven, or near it,

      Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

 

Higher still and higher

      From the earth thou springest
      Like a cloud of fire;

      The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

 

In the golden lightning

      Of the sunken sun,
      O’er which clouds are bright’ning,

      Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

 

The pale purple even

      Melts around thy flight;
      Like a star of Heaven,

      In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows

      Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

      In the white dawn clear

Until we hardly see—we feel that it is there.

 

All the earth and air

      With thy voice is loud,
      As, when night is bare,

      From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

 

What thou art we know not;

      What is most like thee?
      From rainbow clouds there flow not

      Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

 

Like a Poet hidden

      In the light of thought,
      Singing hymns unbidden,

      Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

 

Like a high-born maiden

      In a palace-tower,
      Soothing her love-laden

      Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

 

Like a glow-worm golden

      In a dell of dew,
      Scattering unbeholden

      Its aëreal hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view!

 

Like a rose embowered

      In its own green leaves,
      By warm winds deflowered,

      Till the scent it gives
      Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

 

Sound of vernal showers

      On the twinkling grass,
      Rain-awakened flowers,

      All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

 

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
            What sweet thoughts are thine:

I have never heard
            Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,

      Or triumphal chant,

Matched with thine would be all

      But an empty vaunt,

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

 

What objects are the fountains

      Of thy happy strain?
      What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

      Languor cannot be:
      Shadow of annoyance

      Never came near thee:
Thou lovest—but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

 

Waking or asleep,

      Thou of death must deem
      Things more true and deep

      Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

 

We look before and after,

      And pine for what is not:
      Our sincerest laughter

      With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

 

Yet if we could scorn

      Hate, and pride, and fear;
      If we were things born

      Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

 

Better than all measures

      Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

      That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

 

Teach me half the gladness

      That thy brain must know,
      Such harmonious madness

      From my lips would flow
The world should listen then—as I am listening now.