Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
10
Is bellowing underground.
III
But keener thy gaze than the lightening’s glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake’s tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun’s bright lamp
15
To thine is a fen-fire damp.
IV
From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,—
20
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.
SUMMER AND WINTER
IT was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
5
From the horizon—and the stainless sky
Opens beyond them like eternity.
All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
10
And the firm foliage of the larger trees.
It was a winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
15
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!
THE TOWER OF FAMINE
AMID the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people,—so that Pity
Weeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave,
5
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.
10
There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes; each marble-ribbèd roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
Of solitary wealth,—the tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air,—
15
Are by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof,
And are withdrawn—so that the world is bare;
As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror
Amid a company of ladies fair
Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
20
Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,
The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,
Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.
AN ALLEGORY
I
A PORTAL as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
5
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.
II
And many pass it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy …
10
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine;—these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
15
That shadows follow them where’er they go.
THE WORLD’S WANDERERS
I
TELL me, thou Star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?
II
5
Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray
Pilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?
III
Weary Wind, who wanderest
20
Like the world’s rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?
SONNET
YE hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear?
O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess
5
All that pale Expectation feigneth fair!
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,
And all that never yet was known would know—
Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,
10
With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path,
Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,
A refuge in the cavern of gray death?
O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you
Hope to inherit in the grave below?
LINES TO A REVIEWER
ALAS, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
5
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some fain sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
10
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE
IF gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
5
Hurling the damned into the murky air
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,
Are the true secrets of the commonweal
10
To make men wise and just; …
And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,
Bloodier than is revenge …
Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
15
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw
The frozen tears …
If Satire’s scourge could wake the slumbering hounds
Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,
The leprous scars of callous Infamy;
20
If it could make the present not to be,
Or charm the dark past never to have been,
Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen
What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,
‘Lash on!’ be the keen verse dipped in flame;
25
Follow his flight with wingèd words, and urge
Until the heart be naked, till his soul
See the contagion’s spots foul;
And from the mirror of Truth’s sunlike shield,
30
From which his Parthian arrow …
Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,
Until his mind’s eye paint thereon—
Let scorn like yawn below,
And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
35
This cannot be, it ought not, evil still—
Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.
Rough words beget sad thoughts, and, beside,
Men take a sullen and a stupid pride
In being all they hate in others’ shame,
40
By a perverse antipathy of fame.
’Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how
From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow
These bitter waters; I will only say,
If any friend would take Southey some day,
45
And tell him, in a country walk alone,
Softening harsh words with friendship’s gentle tone,
How incorrect his public conduct is,
And what men think of it, ’twere not amiss.
Far better than to make innocent ink—
GOOD-NIGHT
I
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.
II
5
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.
III
To hearts which near each other move
10
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.
BUONA NOTTE
I
‘BUONA notte, buona notte!’—Come mai
La notte sarà buona senza te?
Non dirmi buona notte,—chè tu sai,
La notte sà star buona da per sè.
II
5
Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme,
La notte quando Lilla m’abbandona;
Pei cuori chi si batton insieme
Ogni notte, senza dirla, sarà buona.
III
Come male buona notte si suona
10
Con sospiri e parole interrotte!—
Il modo di aver la notte buona
E mai non di dir la buona notte.
ORPHEUS
A. Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,
Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold
A dark and barren field, through which there flows,
Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,
5
Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon
Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook
Until you pause beside a darksome pond,
The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush
10
Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night
That lives beneath the overhanging rock
That shades the pool—an endless spring of gloom,
Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,
Trembling to mingle with its paramour,—
15
But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day,
Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,
Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.
On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill
There is a cave, from which there eddies up
20
A pale mist, like aëreal gossamer,
Whose breath destroys all life—awhile it veils
The rock—then, scattered by the wind, it flies
Along the stream, or lingers on the clefts,
Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there.
25
Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock
There stands a group of cypresses; not such
As, with a graceful spire and stirring life,
Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale,
Whose branches the air plays among, but not
30
Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace;
But blasted and all wearily they stand,
One to another clinging; their weak boughs
Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake
Beneath its blasts—a weather beaten crew!
35
Chorus. What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint,
But more melodious than the murmuring wind
Which through the columns of a temple glides?
A. It is the wandering voice of Orpheus’ lyre,
Borne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king
40
Hurries them fast from these air-feeding notes;
But in their speed they bear along with them
The waning sound, scattering it like dew
Upon the startled sense.
Chorus. Does he still sing?
Methought he rashly cast away his harp
When he had lost Eurydice.
45
A. Ah, no!
Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag
A moment shudders on the fearful brink
Of a swift stream—the cruel hounds press on
With deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound,—
50
He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn
By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief,
Maenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air,
And wildly shrieked ‘Where she is, it is dark!’
And then he struck from forth the strings a sound
55
Of deep and fearful melody. Alas!
In times long past, when fair Eurydice
With her bright eyes sat listening by his side,
He gently sang of high and heavenly themes.
As in a brook, fretted with little waves
60
By the light airs of spring—each riplet makes
A many-sided mirror for the sun,
While it flows musically through green banks,
Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh,
So flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy
65
And tender love that fed those sweetest notes,
The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food.
But that is past. Returning from drear Hell,
He chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone,
Blackened with lichens, a herbless plain.
70
Then from the deep and overflowing spring
Of his eternal ever-moving grief
There rose to Heaven a sound of angry song.
’Tis a mighty cataract that parts
Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong,
75
And casts itself with horrid roar and din
Adown a steep; from a perennial source
It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air
With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar,
And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray
80
Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light.
Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief
Is clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words
Of poesy. Unlike all human works,
It never slackens, and through every change
85
Wisdom and beauty and the power divine
Of mighty poesy together dwell,
Mingling in sweet accord. As I have seen
> A fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky,
Driving along a rack of wingèd clouds,
90
Which may not pause, but ever hurry on,
As their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars,
Twinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes.
Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome
Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,
95
Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon
Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,
Rising all bright behind the eastern hills.
I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not
Of song; but, would I echo his high song,
100
Nature must lend me words ne’er used before,
Or I must borrow from her perfect works,
To picture forth his perfect attributes.
He does no longer sit upon his throne
Of rock upon a desert herbless plain,
105
For the evergreen and knotted ilexes,
And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,
And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,
And elms dragging along the twisted vines,
Which drop their berries as they follow fast,
110
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race
Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,
And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,
As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself
115
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth
Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 95