Bereavement

HOW stern are the woes of the desolate mourner

          As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,

As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,

          And drops to perfection's remembrance a tear;

When floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,

When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,

Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,

          And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

Ah, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,

          Or summer succeed to the winter of death?

Rest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will save

          The spirit that hath faded away with the breath.

Eternity points, in its amaranth bower

Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lour,

Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,

          When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Cloud

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

       From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

       In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

       The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,

       As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

       And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve it in rain,

       And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,

       And their great pines groan aghast;

And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

       While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,

       Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,

       It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,

       This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move

       In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

       Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,

       The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,

       Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,

       And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

       When the morning star shines dead;

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

       Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

       In the light of its golden wings.

And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

       Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

       From the depth of Heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,

       As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,

       Whom mortals call the Moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,

       By the midnight breezes strewn;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

       Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

       The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

       Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,

       Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,

       Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,

       And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim

       When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

       Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--

       The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march

       With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,

       Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

       While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

       And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

       I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

       The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

       Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

       And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

       I arise and unbuild it again. <

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Indian Serenade

IARISE from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me--who knows how?

To thy chamber window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream--

The champak odors fail

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart;

As I must on thine,

Oh, beloved as thou art!

O lift me from the grass!

1 die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast;--

Oh! press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

To Wordsworth

POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know

That things depart which never may return:

Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,

Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.

These common woes I feel. One loss is mine

Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.

Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine

On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:

Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood

Above the blind and battling multitude:

In honoured poverty thy voice did weave

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,--

Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Worlds on worlds are rolling ever

WORLDS on worlds are rolling ever

     From creation to decay,

Like the bubbles on a river

     Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

     But they are still immortal

     Who, through birth's orient portal

And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,

     Clothe their unceasing flight

     In the brief dust and light

Gathered around their chariots as they go;

     New shapes they still may weave,

     New Gods, new laws receive,

Bright or dim are they as the robes they last

     On Death's bare ribs had cast.

A power from the unknown God,

     A Promethean conqueror, came;

Like a triumphal path he trod

     The thorns of death and shame.

     A mortal shape to him

     Was like the vapour dim

Which the orient planet animates with light;

     Hell, Sin, and Slavery came,

     Like bloodhounds mild and tame,

Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight;

     The moon of Mahomet

     Arose, and it shall set:

While blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon

     The cross leads generations on.

Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep

     From one whose dreams are Paradise

Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,

     And Day peers forth with her blank eyes;

     So fleet, so faint, so fair,

     The Powers of earth and air

Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem:

     Apollo, Pan, and Love,

     And even Olympian Jove

Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them;

     Our hills and seas and streams,

     Dispeopled of their dreams,

Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears

     Wailed for the golden years.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The world's great age begins anew

THE world's great age begins anew,

The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep

Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,

Fraught with a later prize;

Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.

A new Ulysses leaves once more

Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,

If earth Death's scroll must be!

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy

Which dawns upon the free:

Although a subtler Sphinx renew

Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendour of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,

All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good

Than all who fell, than One who rose,

Than many unsubdued:

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,

But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?

Cease! must men kill and die?

Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,

Oh, might it die or rest at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sonnet: England in 1819

AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,--

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,--

A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,--

An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,--

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;

Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed;

A Senate,--Time's worst statute unrepealed,--

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

THE awful shadow of some unseen Power

    Floats through 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,

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.

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?

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 oe'er the 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.

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 messgenger 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.

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!

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.

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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Song to the Men of England

MEN of England, wherefore plough

For the lords who lay ye low?

Wherefore weave with toil and care

The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,

From the cradle to the grave,

Those ungrateful drones who would

Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge

Many a weapon, chain, and scourge

That these stingless drones may spoil

The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,

Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?

Or what is it ye buy so dear

With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye sow, another reaps;

The wealth ye find, another keeps;

The robes ye weave, another wears;

The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap;

Find wealth, -- let no impostor heap;

Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear;

Forge arms, -- in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;

In halls ye deck another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see

The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,

Trace your grave, and build your tomb,

And weave your winding-sheet, till fair

England be your sepulchre.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

An Exhortation

CHAMELEONS feed on light and air:

Poets' food is love and fame:

If in this wide world of care

Poets could but find the same

With as little toil as they,

Would they ever change their hue

As the light chameleons do,

Suiting it to every ray

    Twenty times a day?

Poets are on this cold earth,

As chameleons might be,

Hidden from their early birth

In a cave beneath the sea;

Where light is, chameleons change:

Where love is not, poets do:

Fame is love disguised: if few

Find either, never think it strange

    That poets range.

Yet dare not stain with wealth or power

A poet's free and heavenly mind:

If bright chameleons should devour

Any food but beams and wind,

They would grow as earthly soon

As their brother lizards are.

Children of a sunnier star,

Spirits from beyond the moon,

    O, refuse the boon!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Good-Night

GOOD-NIGHT? ah! no; the hour is ill

Which severs those it should unite;

Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?

Be it not said, thought, understood --

Then it will be -- good night.

To hearts which near each other move

From evening close to morning light,

The night is good; because, my love,

They never say good-night.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hymn of Pan

FROM the forests and highlands

We come, we come;

From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb

     Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

The bees on the bells of thyme

The birds on the myrtle bushes,

The cacale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Timolus was,

    Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing

The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,

To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

    With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the daedal Earth,

And of Heaven -- and the giant wars,

And Love, and Death, and Birth, --

And then I changed my pipings, --

SInging how down the vale of Maenalus

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.

Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:

All wept, as I think both ye now would,

If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

    At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Index to poems in the collection by Percy Bysshe Shelley