Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50)

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Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Page 174

by Homer


  Glimmering at my feet; the line

  Of the olive-sandall’d Apennine

  In the south dimly islanded;

  And the Alps, whose snows are spread 165

  High between the clouds and sun;

  And of living things each one;

  And my spirit, which so long

  Darken’d this swift stream of song, —

  Interpenetrated lie 170

  By the glory of the sky;

  Be it love, light, harmony,

  Odour, or the soul of all

  Which from heaven like dew doth fall,

  Or the mind which feels this verse, 175

  Peopling the lone universe.

  Noon descends, and after noon

  Autumn’s evening meets me soon,

  Leading the infantine moon

  And that one star, which to her 180

  Almost seems to minister

  Half the crimson light she brings

  From the sunset’s radiant springs:

  And the soft dreams of the morn

  (Which like winge´d winds had borne 185

  To that silent isle, which lies

  ‘Mid remember’d agonies,

  The frail bark of this lone being),

  Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,

  And its ancient pilot, Pain, 190

  Sits beside the helm again.

  Other flowering isles must be

  In the sea of life and agony:

  Other spirits float and flee

  O’er that gulf: ev’n now, perhaps, 195

  On some rock the wild wave wraps,

  With folding wings they waiting sit

  For my bark, to pilot it

  To some calm and blooming cove,

  Where for me, and those I love, 200

  May a windless bower be built,

  Far from passion, pain, and guilt,

  In a dell ‘mid lawny hills

  Which the wild sea-murmur fills,

  And soft sunshine, and the sound 205

  Of old forests echoing round,

  And the light and smell divine

  Of all flowers that breathe and shine.

  — We may live so happy there,

  That the spirits of the air 210

  Envying us, may even entice

  To our healing paradise

  The polluting multitude;

  But their rage would be subdued

  By that clime divine and calm, 215

  And the winds whose wings rain balm

  On the uplifted soul, and leaves

  Under which the bright sea heaves;

  While each breathless interval

  In their whisperings musical 220

  The inspired soul supplies

  With its own deep melodies;

  And the Love which heals all strife

  Circling, like the breath of life,

  All things in that sweet abode 225

  With its own mild brotherhood.

  They, not it, would change; and soon

  Every sprite beneath the moon

  Would repent its envy vain,

  And the Earth grow young again! 230

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  Hymn to the Spirit of Nature

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  LIFE of Life! Thy lips enkindle

  With their love the breath between them;

  And thy smiles before they dwindle

  Make the cold air fire; then screen them

  In those locks, where whoso gazes 5

  Faints, entangled in their mazes.

  Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning

  Through the veil which seems to hide them,

  As the radiant lines of morning

  Through thin clouds, ere they divide them; 10

  And this atmosphere divinest

  Shrouds thee whereso’er thou shinest.

  Fair are others: none beholds Thee;

  But thy voice sounds low and tender

  Like the fairest, for it folds thee 15

  From the sight, that liquid splendour;

  And all feel, yet see thee never, —

  As I feel now, lost for ever!

  Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest

  Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 20

  And the souls of whom thou lovest

  Walk upon the winds with lightness

  Till they fail, as I am failing,

  Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  A Lament

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  O WORLD! O Life! O Time!

  On whose last steps I climb,

  Trembling at that where I had stood before;

  When will return the glory of your prime?

  No more — O never more! 5

  Out of the day and night

  A joy has taken flight:

  Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar

  Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight

  No more — O never more! 10

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  A Dream of the Unknown

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  I DREAM’D that as I wander’d by the way

  Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,

  And gentle odours led my steps astray,

  Mix’d with a sound of waters murmuring

  Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 5

  Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

  Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

  But kiss’d it and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

  There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

  Daisies, those pearl’d Arcturi of the earth, 10

  The constellated flower that never sets;

  Faint oxlips; tender blue-bells, at whose birth

  The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets

  Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears,

  When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears. 15

  And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

  Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour’d May,

  And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine

  Was the bright dew yet drain’d not by the day;

  And wild roses, and ivy serpentine 20

  With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;

  And flowers azure, black, and streak’d with gold,

  Fairer than any waken’d eyes behold.

  And nearer to the river’s trembling edge

  There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank’t with white, 25

  And starry river-buds among the sedge,

  And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,

  Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

  With moonlight beams of their own watery light;

  And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 30

  As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

  Methought that of these visionary flowers

  I made a nosegay, bound in such a way

  That the same hues, which in their natural bowers

  Were mingled or opposed, the like array 35

  Kept these imprison’d children of the Hours

  Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay,

  I hasten’d to the spot whence I had come

  That I might there present it — O! to whom?

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Invitation

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  BEST and Brightest, come away,

  Fairer far than this fair day,

  Which, like thee, to those in sorrow

  Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow

  To the rough year just awake 5


  In its cradle on the brake.

  The brightest hour of unborn Spring

  Through the winter wandering,

  Found, it seems, the halcyon morn

  To hoar February born; 10

  Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,

  It kiss’d the forehead of the earth,

  And smiled upon the silent sea,

  And bade the frozen streams be free,

  And waked to music all their fountains, 15

  And breathed upon the frozen mountains,

  And like a prophetess of May

  Strew’d flowers upon the barren way,

  Making the wintry world appear

  Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear. 20

  Away, away, from men and towns,

  To the wild wood and the downs —

  To the silent wilderness

  Where the soul need not repress

  Its music, lest it should not find 25

  An echo in another’s mind,

  While the touch of Nature’s art

  Harmonizes heart to heart.

  I leave this notice on my door

  For each accustomed visitor: — 30

  “I am gone into the fields

  To take what this sweet hour yields; —

  Reflection, you may come to-morrow,

  Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. —

  You with the unpaid bill, Despair, — 35

  You tiresome verse-reciter, Care, —

  I will pay you in the grave, —

  Death will listen to your stave.

  Expectation too, be off!

  To-day is for itself enough; 40

  Hope, in pity mock not Woe

  With smiles, nor follow where I go;

  Long having lived on thy sweet food,

  At length I find one moment’s good

  After long pain — with all your love, 45

  This you never told me of.”

  Radiant Sister of the Day

  Awake! arise! and come away!

  To the wild woods and the plains,

  To the pools where winter rains 50

  Image all their roof of leaves,

  Where the pine its garland weaves

  Of sapless green, and ivy dun,

  Round stems that never kiss the sun,

  Where the lawns and pastures be, 55

  And the sandhills of the sea,

  Where the melting hoar-frost wets

  The daisy-star that never sets,

  And wind-flowers and violets

  Which yet join not scent to hue 60

  Crown the pale year weak and new;

  When the night is left behind

  In the deep east, dim and blind,

  And the blue noon is over us,

  And the multitudinous 65

  Billows murmur at our feet,

  Where the earth and ocean meet,

  And all things seem only one

  In the universal Sun.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  The Recollection

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  NOW the last day of many days

  All beautiful and bright as thou,

  The loveliest and the last, is dead:

  Rise, Memory, and write its praise!

  Up, do thy wonted work! come, trace 5

  The epitaph of glory fled,

  For now the earth has changed its face,

  A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.

  We wander’d to the Pine Forest

  That skirts the Ocean’s foam; 10

  The lightest wind was in its nest,

  The tempest in its home.

  The whispering waves were half asleep,

  The clouds were gone to play,

  And on the bosom of the deep 15

  The smile of Heaven lay;

  It seem’d as if the hour were one

  Sent from beyond the skies

  Which scatter’d from above the sun

  A light of Paradise! 20

  We paused amid the pines that stood

  The giants of the waste,

  Tortured by storms to shape as rude

  As serpents interlaced, —

  And soothed by every azure breath 25

  That under heaven is blown

  To harmonies and hues beneath,

  As tender as its own:

  Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,

  Like green waves on the sea, 30

  As still as in the silent deep

  The ocean-woods may be.

  How calm it was! — the silence there

  But such a chain was bound,

  That even the busy woodpecker 35

  Made stiller by her sound

  The inviolable quietness;

  The breath of peace we drew

  With its soft motion made not less

  The calm that round us grew. 40

  There seem’d, from the remotest seat

  Of the wide mountain waste

  To the soft flower beneath our feet

  A magic circle traced,

  A spirit interfused around, 45

  A thrilling silent life;

  To momentary peace it bound

  Our mortal nature’s strife; —

  And still I felt the centre of

  The magic circle there 50

  Was one fair Form that fill’d with love

  The lifeless atmosphere.

  We paused beside the pools that lie

  Under the forest bough;

  Each seem’d as ‘twere a little sky 55

  Gulf’d in a world below;

  A firmament of purple light

  Which in the dark earth lay,

  More boundless than the depth of night

  And purer than the day — 60

  In which the lovely forests grew

  As in the upper air,

  More perfect both in shape and hue

  Than any spreading there.

  There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 65

  And through the dark-green wood

  The white sun twinkling like the dawn

  Out of a speckled cloud.

  Sweet views which in our world above

  Can never well be seen 70

  Were imaged by the water’s love

  Of that fair forest green:

  And all was interfused beneath

  With an Elysian glow,

  An atmosphere without a breath, 75

  A softer day below.

  Like one beloved, the scene had lent

  To the dark water’s breast

  Its every leaf and lineament

  With more than truth exprest; 80

  Until an envious wind crept by,

  Like an unwelcome thought

  Which from the mind’s too faithful eye

  Blots one dear image out.

  — Though Thou art ever fair and kind, 85

  The forests ever green,

  Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind

  Than calm in waters seen!

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  To the Moon

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  ART thou pale for weariness

  Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,

  Wandering companionless

  Among the stars that have a different birth, —

  And ever-changing, like a joyless eye 5

  That finds no object worth its constancy?

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  A Widow Bird

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love

  Upon a wintry bough;

  The frozen wind crept on above

  The freezing stream below.

  There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 5

  No flower upon the ground,

>   And little motion in the air

  Except the mill-wheel’s sound.

  List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

  List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

  To a Lady, with a Guitar

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

  ARIEL to Miranda: — Take

  This slave of music, for the sake

  Of him, who is the slave of thee;

  And teach it all the harmony

  In which thou canst, and only thou, 5

  Make the delighted spirit glow,

  Till joy denies itself again

  And, too intense, is turn’d to pain.

  For by permission and command

  Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 10

  Poor Ariel sends this silent token

  Of more than ever can be spoken;

  Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who

  From life to life must still pursue

  Your happiness, for thus alone 15

  Can Ariel ever find his own;

  From Prospero’s enchanted cell,

  As the mighty verses tell,

  To the throne of Naples he

  Lit you o’er the trackless sea, 20

  Flitting on, your prow before,

  Like a living meteor.

  When you die, the silent Moon

  In her interlunar swoon

  Is not sadder in her cell 25

  Than deserted Ariel;

  When you live again on earth,

  Like an unseen Star of birth

  Ariel guides you o’er the sea

  Of life from your nativity: 30

  Many changes have been run

  Since Ferdinand and you begun

  Your course of love, and Ariel still

  Has track’d your steps and served your will.

  Now in humbler, happier lot, 35

  This is all remember’d not;

  And now, alas! the poor sprite is

  Imprison’d for some fault of his

  In a body like a grave —

  From you he only dares to crave 40

  For his service and his sorrow

  A smile today, a song tomorrow.

  The artist who this idol wrought

 

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