Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Rent the soft Form they never could repel,

  Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215

  Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

  25.

  In the death-chamber for a moment Death,

  Shamed by the presence of that living Might,

  Blushed to annihilation, and the breath

  Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light 220

  Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight.

  ‘Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,

  As silent lightning leaves the starless night!

  Leave me not!’ cried Urania: her distress

  Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. 225

  26.

  ‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

  Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

  And in my heartless breast and burning brain

  That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

  With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230

  Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

  Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

  All that I am to be as thou now art!

  But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

  27.

  ‘O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235

  Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men

  Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart

  Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?

  Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then

  Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 240

  Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when

  Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,

  The monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.

  28.

  ‘The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;

  The obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead; 245

  The vultures to the conqueror’s banner true

  Who feed where Desolation first has fed,

  And whose wings rain contagion; — how they fled,

  When, like Apollo, from his golden bow

  The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 250

  And smiled! — The spoilers tempt no second blow,

  They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

  29.

  ‘The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;

  He sets, and each ephemeral insect then

  Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255

  And the immortal stars awake again;

  So is it in the world of living men:

  A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight

  Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when

  It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 260

  Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.’

  30.

  Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came,

  Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;

  The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame

  Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265

  An early but enduring monument,

  Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song

  In sorrow; from her wilds Ierne sent

  The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,

  And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue. 270

  31.

  Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,

  A phantom among men; companionless

  As the last cloud of an expiring storm

  Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,

  Had gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness, 275

  Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray

  With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,

  And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,

  Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

  32.

  A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — 280

  A Love in desolation masked; — a Power

  Girt round with weakness; — it can scarce uplift

  The weight of the superincumbent hour;

  It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

  A breaking billow; — even whilst we speak 285

  Is it not broken? On the withering flower

  The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek

  The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

  33.

  His head was bound with pansies overblown,

  And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; 290

  And a light spear topped with a cypress cone,

  Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew

  Yet dripping with the forest’s noonday dew,

  Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart

  Shook the weak hand that grasped it; of that crew 295

  He came the last, neglected and apart;

  A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.

  34.

  All stood aloof, and at his partial moan

  Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band

  Who in another’s fate now wept his own, 300

  As in the accents of an unknown land

  He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned

  The Stranger’s mien, and murmured: ‘Who art thou?’

  He answered not, but with a sudden hand

  Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305

  Which was like Cain’s or Christ’s — oh! that it should be so!

  35.

  What softer voice is hushed over the dead?

  Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?

  What form leans sadly o’er the white death-bed,

  In mockery of monumental stone, 310

  The heavy heart heaving without a moan?

  If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,

  Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one,

  Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,

  The silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice. 315

  36.

  Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh!

  What deaf and viperous murderer could crown

  Life’s early cup with such a draught of woe?

  The nameless worm would now itself disown:

  It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 320

  Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong,

  But what was howling in one breast alone,

  Silent with expectation of the song,

  Whose master’s hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.

  37.

  Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! 325

  Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,

  Thou noteless blot on a remembered name!

  But be thyself, and know thyself to be!

  And ever at thy season be thou free

  To spill the venom when thy fangs o’erflow; 330

  Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;

  Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,

  And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now.

  38.

  Nor let us weep that our delight is fled

  Far from these carrion kites that scream below; 335

  He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;

  Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now —

  Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow

  Back to the burning fountain whence it came,

  A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 340

  Through time and change, unquenchably the same,

  Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

  39.

  Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep —

  He hath awakened from the dream of life —

  ‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep 345

  With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

  And in m
ad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife

  Invulnerable nothings. — WE decay

  Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

  Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350

  And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

  40.

  He has outsoared the shadow of our night;

  Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

  And that unrest which men miscall delight,

  Can touch him not and torture not again; 355

  From the contagion of the world’s slow stain

  He is secure, and now can never mourn

  A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;

  Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,

  With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360

  41.

  He lives, he wakes—’tis Death is dead, not he;

  Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn,

  Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee

  The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;

  Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! 365

  Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air,

  Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown

  O’er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare

  Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!

  42.

  He is made one with Nature: there is heard 370

  His voice in all her music, from the moan

  Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird;

  He is a presence to be felt and known

  In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,

  Spreading itself where’er that Power may move 375

  Which has withdrawn his being to its own;

  Which wields the world with never-wearied love,

  Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

  43.

  He is a portion of the loveliness

  Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear 380

  His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress

  Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there

  All new successions to the forms they wear;

  Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight

  To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; 385

  And bursting in its beauty and its might

  From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light.

  44.

  The splendours of the firmament of time

  May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;

  Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 390

  And death is a low mist which cannot blot

  The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought

  Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,

  And love and life contend in it, for what

  Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 395

  And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

  45.

  The inheritors of unfulfilled renown

  Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,

  Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton

  Rose pale, — his solemn agony had not 400

  Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought

  And as he fell and as he lived and loved

  Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,

  Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved:

  Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 405

  46.

  And many more, whose names on Earth are dark,

  But whose transmitted effluence cannot die

  So long as fire outlives the parent spark,

  Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.

  ‘Thou art become as one of us,’ they cry, 410

  ‘It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long

  Swung blind in unascended majesty,

  Silent alone amid a Heaven of Song.

  Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!’

  47.

  Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, 415

  Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.

  Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;

  As from a centre, dart thy spirit’s light

  Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might

  Satiate the void circumference: then shrink 420

  Even to a point within our day and night;

  And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink

  When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.

  48.

  Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre,

  Oh, not of him, but of our joy: ‘tis nought 425

  That ages, empires and religions there

  Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;

  For such as he can lend, — they borrow not

  Glory from those who made the world their prey;

  And he is gathered to the kings of thought 430

  Who waged contention with their time’s decay,

  And of the past are all that cannot pass away.

  49.

  Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise,

  The grave, the city, and the wilderness;

  And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 435

  And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress

  The bones of Desolation’s nakedness

  Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead

  Thy footsteps to a slope of green access

  Where, like an infant’s smile, over the dead 440

  A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

  50.

  And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time

  Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;

  And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,

  Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445

  This refuge for his memory, doth stand

  Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,

  A field is spread, on which a newer band

  Have pitched in Heaven’s smile their camp of death,

  Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. 450

  51.

  Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet

  To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned

  Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,

  Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,

  Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find

  Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,

  Of tears and gall. From the world’s bitter wind

  Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.

  What Adonais is, why fear we to become?

  52.

  The One remains, the many change and pass;

  Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;

  Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

  Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

  Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die,

  If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!

  Follow where all is fled! — Rome’s azure sky,

  Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak

  The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

  53.

  Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?

  Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here

  They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!

  A light is passed from the revolving year,

  And man, and woman; and what still is dear

  Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.

  The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near:

  ‘Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,

  No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

  54.

  That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,

  That Beauty in which all things work and move,

  That Benediction which the eclips
ing Curse

  Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

  Which through the web of being blindly wove

  By man and beast and earth and air and sea,

  Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

  The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,

  Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

  55.

  The breath whose might I have invoked in song

  Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven,

  Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng

  Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

  The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!

  I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

  Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,

  The soul of Adonais, like a star,

  Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 495

  CANCELLED PASSAGES OF ADONAIS.

  [Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]

  PASSAGES OF THE PREFACE.

  …the expression of my indignation and sympathy. I will allow myself a first and last word on the subject of calumny as it relates to me. As an author I have dared and invited censure. If I understand myself, I have written neither for profit nor for fame. I have employed my poetical compositions and publications simply as the instruments of that sympathy between myself and others which the ardent and unbounded love I cherished for my kind incited me to acquire. I expected all sorts of stupidity and insolent contempt from those…

  …These compositions (excepting the tragedy of “The Cenci”, which was written rather to try my powers than to unburthen my full heart) are insufficiently…commendation than perhaps they deserve, even from their bitterest enemies; but they have not attained any corresponding popularity. As a man, I shrink from notice and regard; the ebb and flow of the world vexes me; I desire to be left in peace. Persecution, contumely, and calumny have been heaped upon me in profuse measure; and domestic conspiracy and legal oppression have violated in my person the most sacred rights of nature and humanity. The bigot will say it was the recompense of my errors; the man of the world will call it the result of my imprudence; but never upon one head…

  …Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thieftaker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic. But a young spirit panting for fame, doubtful of its powers, and certain only of its aspirations, is ill qualified to assign its true value to the sneer of this world. He knows not that such stuff as this is of the abortive and monstrous births which time consumes as fast as it produces. He sees the truth and falsehood, the merits and demerits, of his case inextricably entangled…No personal offence should have drawn from me this public comment upon such stuff…

  …The offence of this poor victim seems to have consisted solely in his intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Mr. Hazlitt, and some other enemies of despotism and superstition. My friend Hunt has a very hard skull to crack, and will take a deal of killing. I do not know much of Mr. Hazlitt, but…