Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  The surviving manuscript of the first page

  THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

  Swift as a spirit hastening to his task

  Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth

  Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

  Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth —

  The smokeless altars of the mountain snows 5

  Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

  Of light, the Ocean’s orison arose,

  To which the birds tempered their matin lay.

  All flowers in field or forest which unclose

  Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, 10

  Swinging their censers in the element,

  With orient incense lit by the new ray

  Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent

  Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air;

  And, in succession due, did continent, 15

  Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear

  The form and character of mortal mould,

  Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

  Their portion of the toil, which he of old

  Took as his own, and then imposed on them: 20

  But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

  Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem

  The cone of night, now they were laid asleep

  Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

  Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep 25

  Of a green Apennine: before me fled

  The night; behind me rose the day; the deep

  Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head, —

  When a strange trance over my fancy grew

  Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread 30

  Was so transparent, that the scene came through

  As clear as when a veil of light is drawn

  O’er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew

  That I had felt the freshness of that dawn

  Bathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair, 35

  And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

  Under the self-same bough, and heard as there

  The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold

  Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air,

  And then a vision on my train was rolled. 40

  …

  As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay,

  This was the tenour of my waking dream: —

  Methought I sate beside a public way

  Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream

  Of people there was hurrying to and fro, 45

  Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

  All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know

  Whither he went, or whence he came, or why

  He made one of the multitude, and so

  Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky 50

  One of the million leaves of summer’s bier;

  Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

  Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,

  Some flying from the thing they feared, and some

  Seeking the object of another’s fear; 55

  And others, as with steps towards the tomb,

  Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,

  And others mournfully within the gloom

  Of their own shadow walked, and called it death;

  And some fled from it as it were a ghost, 60

  Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:

  But more, with motions which each other crossed,

  Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw,

  Or birds within the noonday aether lost,

  Upon that path where flowers never grew, —

  And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,

  Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

  Out of their mossy cells forever burst;

  Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told

  Of grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed 70

  With overarching elms and caverns cold,

  And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they

  Pursued their serious folly as of old.

  And as I gazed, methought that in the way

  The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June 75

  When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,

  And a cold glare, intenser than the noon,

  But icy cold, obscured with blinding light

  The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon —

  When on the sunlit limits of the night 80

  Her white shell trembles amid crimson air,

  And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might —

  Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear

  The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form

  Bends in dark aether from her infant’s chair, — 85

  So came a chariot on the silent storm

  Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape

  So sate within, as one whom years deform,

  Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,

  Crouching within the shadow of a tomb; 90

  And o’er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape

  Was bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloom

  Tempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam

  A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

  The guidance of that wonder-winged team; 95

  The shapes which drew it in thick lightenings

  Were lost: — I heard alone on the air’s soft stream

  The music of their ever-moving wings.

  All the four faces of that Charioteer

  Had their eyes banded; little profit brings 100

  Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,

  Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun, —

  Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

  Of all that is, has been or will be done;

  So ill was the car guided — but it passed 105

  With solemn speed majestically on.

  The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,

  Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,

  And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,

  The million with fierce song and maniac dance 110

  Raging around — such seemed the jubilee

  As when to greet some conqueror’s advance

  Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea

  From senate-house, and forum, and theatre,

  When … upon the free 115

  Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.

  Nor wanted here the just similitude

  Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er

  The chariot rolled, a captive multitude

  Was driven; — all those who had grown old in power 120

  Or misery, — all who had their age subdued

  By action or by suffering, and whose hour

  Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,

  So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower; —

  All those whose fame or infamy must grow 125

  Till the great winter lay the form and name

  Of this green earth with them for ever low; —

  All but the sacred few who could not tame

  Their spirits to the conquerors — but as soon

  As they had touched the world with living flame, 130

  Fled back like eagles to their native noon,

  Or those who put aside the diadem

  Of earthly thrones or gems…

  Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem.

  Were neither mid the mighty captives seen, 135

  Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

  Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.

  The wild dance maddens in the van, and those

  Who lead it — fleet as shadows on the green,

  Outspeed the chariot, and without repose 140

  Mix with each other in tempe
stuous measure

  To savage music, wilder as it grows,

  They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,

  Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun

  Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure 145

  Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,

  Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;

  And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

  Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air

  As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now 150

  Bending within each other’s atmosphere,

  Kindle invisibly — and as they glow,

  Like moths by light attracted and repelled,

  Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

  Till like two clouds into one vale impelled, 155

  That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle

  And die in rain — the fiery band which held

  Their natures, snaps — while the shock still may tingle

  One falls and then another in the path

  Senseless — nor is the desolation single, 160

  Yet ere I can say WHERE — the chariot hath

  Passed over them — nor other trace I find

  But as of foam after the ocean’s wrath

  Is spent upon the desert shore; — behind,

  Old men and women foully disarrayed, 165

  Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

  And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,

  Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still

  Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

  But not the less with impotence of will 170

  They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose

  Round them and round each other, and fulfil

  Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose

  Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie,

  And past in these performs what … in those. 175

  Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,

  Half to myself I said—’And what is this?

  Whose shape is that within the car? And why—’

  I would have added—’is all here amiss?—’

  But a voice answered—’Life!’ — I turned, and knew 180

  (O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)

  That what I thought was an old root which grew

  To strange distortion out of the hill side,

  Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

  And that the grass, which methought hung so wide 185

  And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,

  And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,

  Were or had been eyes:—’If thou canst forbear

  To join the dance, which I had well forborne,’

  Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, 190

  ‘I will unfold that which to this deep scorn

  Led me and my companions, and relate

  The progress of the pageant since the morn;

  ‘If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,

  Follow it thou even to the night, but I 195

  Am weary.’ — Then like one who with the weight

  Of his own words is staggered, wearily

  He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:

  ‘First, who art thou?’—’Before thy memory,

  ‘I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, 200

  And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit

  Had been with purer nutriment supplied,

  ‘Corruption would not now thus much inherit

  Of what was once Rousseau, — nor this disguise

  Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it; 205

  ‘If I have been extinguished, yet there rise

  A thousand beacons from the spark I bore’ —

  ‘And who are those chained to the car?’—’The wise,

  ‘The great, the unforgotten, — they who wore

  Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, 210

  Signs of thought’s empire over thought — their lore

  ‘Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might

  Could not repress the mystery within,

  And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

  ‘Caught them ere evening.’—’Who is he with chin 215

  Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?’ —

  ‘The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

  ‘The world, and lost all that it did contain

  Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more

  Of fame and peace than virtue’s self can gain 220

  ‘Without the opportunity which bore

  Him on its eagle pinions to the peak

  From which a thousand climbers have before

  ‘Fallen, as Napoleon fell.’ — I felt my cheek

  Alter, to see the shadow pass away, 225

  Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

  That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;

  And much I grieved to think how power and will

  In opposition rule our mortal day,

  And why God made irreconcilable 230

  Good and the means of good; and for despair

  I half disdained mine eyes’ desire to fill

  With the spent vision of the times that were

  And scarce have ceased to be.—’Dost thou behold,’

  Said my guide, ‘those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, 235

  ‘Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage — names which the world thinks always old,

  ‘For in the battle Life and they did wage,

  She remained conqueror. I was overcome 240

  By my own heart alone, which neither age,

  ‘Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb

  Could temper to its object.’—’Let them pass,’

  I cried, ‘the world and its mysterious doom

  ‘Is not so much more glorious than it was, 245

  That I desire to worship those who drew

  New figures on its false and fragile glass

  ‘As the old faded.’—’Figures ever new

  Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;

  We have but thrown, as those before us threw, 250

  ‘Our shadows on it as it passed away.

  But mark how chained to the triumphal chair

  The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

  ‘All that is mortal of great Plato there

  Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; 255

  The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

  ‘And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,

  Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,

  Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

  ‘And near him walk the … twain, 260

  The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion

  Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

  ‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion

  Of him whom from the flock of conquerors

  Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; 265

  ‘The other long outlived both woes and wars,

  Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept

  The jealous key of Truth’s eternal doors,

  ‘If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not lept

  Like lightning out of darkness — he compelled 270

  The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

  ‘To wake, and lead him to the caves that held

  The treasure of the secrets of its reign.

  See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

  ‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain 275

  May well be known: their living melody

  Tempers its own contagion to the vein

  ‘Of those who are infected with it — I

  Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!

 
And so my words have seeds of misery — 180

  ‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’

  And then he pointed to a company,

  ‘Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs

  Of Caesar’s crime, from him to Constantine;

  The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares 285

  Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,

  And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:

  And Gregory and John, and men divine,

  Who rose like shadows between man and God;

  Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, 290

  Was worshipped by the world o’er which they strode,

  For the true sun it quenched—’Their power was given

  But to destroy,’ replied the leader:—’I

  Am one of those who have created, even

  ‘If it be but a world of agony.’ — 295

  ‘Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?

  How did thy course begin?’ I said, ‘and why?

  ‘Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow

  Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought —

  Speak!’—’Whence I am, I partly seem to know, 300

  ‘And how and by what paths I have been brought

  To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess; —

  Why this should be, my mind can compass not;

  ‘Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less; —

  But follow thou, and from spectator turn 305

  Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

  ‘And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn

  From thee. Now listen: — In the April prime,

  When all the forest-tips began to burn

  ‘With kindling green, touched by the azure clime 310

  Of the young season, I was laid asleep

  Under a mountain, which from unknown time

  ‘Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;

  And from it came a gentle rivulet,

  Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep 315

  ‘Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet

  The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove

  With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

  ‘All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,