Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series Read online

  It was a sight of wonder: some

  Were horned like the crescent moon;

  Some shed a mild and silver beam

  Like Hesperus o’er the western sea;

  Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, 260

  Like worlds to death and ruin driven;

  Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,

  Eclipsed all other light.

  Spirit of Nature! here!

  In this interminable wilderness 265

  Of worlds, at whose immensity

  Even soaring fancy staggers,

  Here is thy fitting temple.

  Yet not the lightest leaf

  That quivers to the passing breeze 270

  Is less instinct with thee:

  Yet not the meanest worm

  That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead

  Less shares thy eternal breath.

  Spirit of Nature! thou! 275

  Imperishable as this scene,

  Here is thy fitting temple.

  2.

  If solitude hath ever led thy steps

  To the wild Ocean’s echoing shore,

  And thou hast lingered there,

  Until the sun’s broad orb

  Seemed resting on the burnished wave, 5

  Thou must have marked the lines

  Of purple gold, that motionless

  Hung o’er the sinking sphere:

  Thou must have marked the billowy clouds

  Edged with intolerable radiancy 10

  Towering like rocks of jet

  Crowned with a diamond wreath.

  And yet there is a moment,

  When the sun’s highest point

  Peeps like a star o’er Ocean’s western edge, 15

  When those far clouds of feathery gold,

  Shaded with deepest purple, gleam

  Like islands on a dark blue sea;

  Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,

  And furled its wearied wing 20

  Within the Fairy’s fane.

  Yet not the golden islands

  Gleaming in yon flood of light,

  Nor the feathery curtains

  Stretching o’er the sun’s bright couch, 25

  Nor the burnished Ocean waves

  Paving that gorgeous dome,

  So fair, so wonderful a sight

  As Mab’s aethereal palace could afford.

  Yet likest evening’s vault, that faery Hall! 30

  As Heaven, low resting on the wave,it spread

  Its floors of flashing light,

  Its vast and azure dome,

  Its fertile golden islands

  Floating on a silver sea; 35

  Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted

  Through clouds of circumambient darkness,

  And pearly battlements around

  Looked o’er the immense of Heaven.

  The magic car no longer moved. 40

  The Fairy and the Spirit

  Entered the Hall of Spells:

  Those golden clouds

  That rolled in glittering billows

  Beneath the azure canopy 45

  With the aethereal footsteps trembled not:

  The light and crimson mists,

  Floating to strains of thrilling melody

  Through that unearthly dwelling,

  Yielded to every movement of the will. 50

  Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,

  And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,

  Used not the glorious privilege

  Of virtue and of wisdom.

  ‘Spirit!’ the Fairy said, 55

  And pointed to the gorgeous dome,

  ‘This is a wondrous sight

  And mocks all human grandeur;

  But, were it virtue’s only meed, to dwell

  In a celestial palace, all resigned 60

  To pleasurable impulses, immured

  Within the prison of itself, the will

  Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.

  Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!

  This is thine high reward: — the past shall rise; 65

  Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach

  The secrets of the future.’

  The Fairy and the Spirit

  Approached the overhanging battlement. —

  Below lay stretched the universe! 70

  There, far as the remotest line

  That bounds imagination’s flight,

  Countless and unending orbs

  In mazy motion intermingled,

  Yet still fulfilled immutably 75

  Eternal Nature’s law.

  Above, below, around,

  The circling systems formed

  A wilderness of harmony;

  Each with undeviating aim, 80

  In eloquent silence, through the depths of space

  Pursued its wondrous way.

  There was a little light

  That twinkled in the misty distance:

  None but a spirit’s eye 85

  Might ken that rolling orb;

  None but a spirit’s eye,

  And in no other place

  But that celestial dwelling, might behold

  Each action of this earth’s inhabitants. 90

  But matter, space and time

  In those aereal mansions cease to act;

  And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps

  The harvest of its excellence, o’er-bounds

  Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul 95

  Fears to attempt the conquest.

  The Fairy pointed to the earth.

  The Spirit’s intellectual eye

  Its kindred beings recognized.

  The thronging thousands, to a passing view, 100

  Seemed like an ant-hill’s citizens.

  How wonderful! that even

  The passions, prejudices, interests,

  That sway the meanest being, the weak touch

  That moves the finest nerve, 105

  And in one human brain

  Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link

  In the great chain of Nature.

  ‘Behold,’ the Fairy cried,

  ‘Palmyra’s ruined palaces! — 110

  Behold! where grandeur frowned;

  Behold! where pleasure smiled;

  What now remains? — the memory

  Of senselessness and shame —

  What is immortal there? 115

  Nothing — it stands to tell

  A melancholy tale, to give

  An awful warning: soon

  Oblivion will steal silently

  The remnant of its fame. 120

  Monarchs and conquerors there

  Proud o’er prostrate millions trod —

  The earthquakes of the human race;

  Like them, forgotten when the ruin

  That marks their shock is past. 125

  ‘Beside the eternal Nile,

  The Pyramids have risen.

  Nile shall pursue his changeless way:

  Those Pyramids shall fall;

  Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell 130

  The spot whereon they stood!

  Their very site shall be forgotten,

  As is their builder’s name!

  ‘Behold yon sterile spot;

  Where now the wandering Arab’s tent 135

  Flaps in the desert-blast.

  There once old Salem’s haughty fane

  Reared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes,

  And in the blushing face of day

  Exposed its shameful glory. 140

  Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed

  The building of that fane; and many a father;

  Worn out with toil and slavery, implored

  The poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth,

  And spare his children the detested task 145

  Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning

  The choicest days of life,

/>   To soothe a dotard’s vanity.

  There an inhuman and uncultured race

  Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; 150

  They rushed to war, tore from the mother’s womb

  The unborn child, — old age and infancy

  Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms

  Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:

  But what was he who taught them that the God 155

  Of nature and benevolence hath given

  A special sanction to the trade of blood?

  His name and theirs are fading, and the tales

  Of this barbarian nation, which imposture

  Recites till terror credits, are pursuing 160

  Itself into forgetfulness.

  ‘Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,

  There is a moral desert now:

  The mean and miserable huts,

  The yet more wretched palaces, 165

  Contrasted with those ancient fanes,

  Now crumbling to oblivion;

  The long and lonely colonnades,

  Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,

  Seem like a well-known tune, 170

  Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear,

  Remembered now in sadness.

  But, oh! how much more changed,

  How gloomier is the contrast

  Of human nature there! 175

  Where Socrates expired, a tyrant’s slave,

  A coward and a fool, spreads death around —

  Then, shuddering, meets his own.

  Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,

  A cowled and hypocritical monk 180

  Prays, curses and deceives.

  ‘Spirit, ten thousand years

  Have scarcely passed away,

  Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks

  His enemy’s blood, and aping Europe’s sons, 185

  Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city,

  Metropolis of the western continent:

  There, now, the mossy column-stone,

  Indented by Time’s unrelaxing grasp, 190

  Which once appeared to brave

  All, save its country’s ruin;

  There the wide forest scene,

  Rude in the uncultivated loveliness

  Of gardens long run wild, 195

  Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps

  Chance in that desert has delayed,

  Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.

  Yet once it was the busiest haunt,

  Whither, as to a common centre, flocked 200

  Strangers, and ships, and merchandise:

  Once peace and freedom blessed

  The cultivated plain:

  But wealth, that curse of man,

  Blighted the bud of its prosperity: 205

  Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,

  Fled, to return not, until man shall know

  That they alone can give the bliss

  Worthy a soul that claims

  Its kindred with eternity. 210

  ‘There’s not one atom of yon earth

  But once was living man;

  Nor the minutest drop of rain,

  That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,

  But flowed in human veins: 215

  And from the burning plains

  Where Libyan monsters yell,

  From the most gloomy glens

  Of Greenland’s sunless clime,

  To where the golden fields 220

  Of fertile England spread

  Their harvest to the day,

  Thou canst not find one spot

  Whereon no city stood.

  ‘How strange is human pride! 225

  I tell thee that those living things,

  To whom the fragile blade of grass,

  That springeth in the morn

  And perisheth ere noon,

  Is an unbounded world; 230

  I tell thee that those viewless beings,

  Whose mansion is the smallest particle

  Of the impassive atmosphere,

  Think, feel and live like man;

  That their affections and antipathies, 235

  Like his, produce the laws

  Ruling their moral state;

  And the minutest throb

  That through their frame diffuses

  The slightest, faintest motion, 240

  Is fixed and indispensable

  As the majestic laws

  That rule yon rolling orbs.’

  The Fairy paused. The Spirit,

  In ecstasy of admiration, felt 245

  All knowledge of the past revived; the events

  Of old and wondrous times,

  Which dim tradition interruptedly

  Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded

  In just perspective to the view; 250

  Yet dim from their infinitude.

  The Spirit seemed to stand

  High on an isolated pinnacle;

  The flood of ages combating below,

  The depth of the unbounded universe 255

  Above, and all around

  Nature’s unchanging harmony.

  3.

  ‘Fairy!’ the Spirit said,

  And on the Queen of Spells

  Fixed her aethereal eyes,

  ‘I thank thee. Thou hast given

  A boon which I will not resign, and taught 5

  A lesson not to be unlearned. I know

  The past, and thence I will essay to glean

  A warning for the future, so that man

  May profit by his errors, and derive

  Experience from his folly: 10

  For, when the power of imparting joy

  Is equal to the will, the human soul

  Requires no other Heaven.’

  MAB:

  ‘Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!

  Much yet remains unscanned. 15

  Thou knowest how great is man,

  Thou knowest his imbecility:

  Yet learn thou what he is:

  Yet learn the lofty destiny

  Which restless time prepares 20

  For every living soul.

  ‘Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid

  Yon populous city rears its thousand towers

  And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops

  Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, 25

  Encompass it around: the dweller there

  Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not

  The curses of the fatherless, the groans

  Of those who have no friend? He passes on:

  The King, the wearer of a gilded chain 30

  That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool

  Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave

  Even to the basest appetites — that man

  Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles

  At the deep curses which the destitute 35

  Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy

  Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan

  But for those morsels which his wantonness

  Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save

  All that they love from famine: when he hears 40

  The tale of horror, to some ready-made face

  Of hypocritical assent he turns,

  Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,

  Flushes his bloated cheek.

  Now to the meal

  Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags 45

  His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,

  Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled

  From every clime, could force the loathing sense

  To overcome satiety, — if wealth

  The spring it draws from poisons not, — or vice, 50

  Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not

  Its food to deadliest venom; then that king

  Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils

  His unforced task,
when he returns at even,

  And by the blazing faggot meets again 55

  Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,

  Tastes not a sweeter meal.

  Behold him now

  Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain

  Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon

  The slumber of intemperance subsides, 60

  And conscience, that undying serpent, calls

  Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task.

  Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye —

  Oh! mark that deadly visage.’

  KING:

  ‘No cessation!

  Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, 65

  I wish, yet fear to clasp thee! — Not one moment

  Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!

  Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity

  In penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest

  With danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn’st 70

  The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!

  Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed

  One drop of balm upon my withered soul.’

  THE FAIRY:

  ‘Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,

  And Peace defileth not her snowy robes 75

  In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;

  His slumbers are but varied agonies,

  They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.

  There needeth not the hell that bigots frame

  To punish those who err: earth in itself 80

  Contains at once the evil and the cure;

  And all-sufficing Nature can chastise

  Those who transgress her law, — she only knows

  How justly to proportion to the fault

  The punishment it merits.

  Is it strange 85

  That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?

  Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug

  The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange

  That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,

  Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured 90

  Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds

  Shut him from all that’s good or dear on earth,

  His soul asserts not its humanity?

  That man’s mild nature rises not in war

  Against a king’s employ? No—’tis not strange. 95

  He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives

  Just as his father did; the unconquered powers

  Of precedent and custom interpose

  Between a KING and virtue. Stranger yet,

  To those who know not Nature, nor deduce 100

  The future from the present, it may seem,

  That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes

  Of this unnatural being; not one wretch,

  Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed

  Is earth’s unpitying bosom, rears an arm

  To dash him from his throne! 105

  Those gilded flies

  That, basking in the sunshine of a court,

  Fatten on its corruption! — what are they?