(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1810. Included in the Esdaile manuscript book.)
1.
Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude 5
To Zephyr’s passing wing?
2.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother’s hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love: 10
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.
3.
He smiles—’tis sorrow’s deadliest mockery;
He speaks — the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl, — 15
Yet, yet he longs — although he fears — to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life’s extremest goal.
TO DEATH.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1810.
Included (under the title, “To Death”) in the Esdaile manuscript book.)
Death! where is thy victory?
To triumph whilst I die,
To triumph whilst thine ebon wing
Enfolds my shuddering soul?
O Death! where is thy sting? 5
Not when the tides of murder roll,
When nations groan, that kings may bask in bliss,
Death! canst thou boast a victory such as this —
When in his hour of pomp and power
His blow the mightiest murderer gave, 10
Mid Nature’s cries the sacrifice
Of millions to glut the grave;
When sunk the Tyrant Desolation’s slave;
Or Freedom’s life-blood streamed upon thy shrine;
Stern Tyrant, couldst thou boast a victory such as mine? 15
To know in dissolution’s void
That mortals’ baubles sunk decay;
That everything, but Love, destroyed
Must perish with its kindred clay, —
Perish Ambition’s crown, 20
Perish her sceptred sway:
From Death’s pale front fades Pride’s fastidious frown.
In Death’s damp vault the lurid fires decay,
That Envy lights at heaven-born Virtue’s beam —
That all the cares subside, 25
Which lurk beneath the tide
Of life’s unquiet stream; —
Yes! this is victory!
And on yon rock, whose dark form glooms the sky,
To stretch these pale limbs, when the soul is fled; 30
To baffle the lean passions of their prey,
To sleep within the palace of the dead!
Oh! not the King, around whose dazzling throne
His countless courtiers mock the words they say,
Triumphs amid the bud of glory blown, 35
As I in this cold bed, and faint expiring groan!
Tremble, ye proud, whose grandeur mocks the woe
Which props the column of unnatural state!
You the plainings, faint and low,
From Misery’s tortured soul that flow, 40
Shall usher to your fate.
Tremble, ye conquerors, at whose fell command
The war-fiend riots o’er a peaceful land!
You Desolation’s gory throng
Shall bear from Victory along 45
To that mysterious strand.
LOVE’S ROSE.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1810.
Included in the Esdaile manuscript book.)
1.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love’s rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow. 5
Youth says, ‘The purple flowers are mine,’
Which die the while they glow.
2.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it’s granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven, 10
Although on earth ‘tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.
3.
Age cannot Love destroy, 15
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy’s bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine 20
In which its vermeil splendours shine.
EYES: A FRAGMENT.
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1810. Included (four unpublished eight-line stanzas) in the Esdaile manuscript book.))
How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt poet’s frenzied lay
When the soul’s wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
How eloquent are eyes! 5
Not music’s most impassioned note
On which Love’s warmest fervours float
Like them bids rapture rise.
Love, look thus again, —
That your look may light a waste of years, 10
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Through the cold shower of tears.
Love, look thus again!
BIGOTRY’S VICTIM.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1809-10. The title is Rossetti’s (1870).)
1.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, 5
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India’s rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.
2.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, 10
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting — ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; 15
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head.
3.
Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains,
And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, 20
Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,
Though a fiercer than tiger is there.
Though, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair,
Though its shadow eclipses the day,
And the darkness of deepest dismay 25
Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,
And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.
4.
They came to the fountain to draw from its stream
Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;
They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam, 30
Then perished, and perished like me.
For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee;
The most tenderly loved of my soul
Are slaves to his hated control.
He pursues me, he blasts me! ‘Tis in vain that
I fly: 35 -
What remains, but to curse him, — to curse him and die?
ON AN ICICLE THAT CLUNG TO THE GRASS OF A GRAVE.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1809-10. The poem, with title as above, is included in the Esdaile manuscript book.)
1.
Oh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes,
Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair,
In which the warm current of love never freezes,
As it rises unmingled with selfishness there,
Which, untainted by pride, unpolluted by care, 5
Might dissolve the dim icedrop, might bid it arise,
Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies.
2.
Or where the stern warrior, his country defending,
Dares fearless the dark-rolling battle to pour,
Or o’er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending, 10
Where patriotism red with his guilt-reeking gore
Plants Liberty’s flag on the slave-peopled shore,
With victory’s cry, with the shout of the free,
Let it fly, taintless Spirit, to mingle with thee.
3.
For I found the pure gem, when the daybeam returning, 15
Ineffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain,
When to others the wished-for arrival of morning
Brings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain;
But regret is an insult — to grieve is in vain:
And why should we grieve that a spirit so fair 20
Seeks Heaven to mix with its own kindred there?
4.
But still ‘twas some Spirit of kindness descending
To share in the load of mortality’s woe,
Who over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending
Bade sympathy’s tenderest teardrop to flow. 25
Not for THEE soft compassion celestials did know,
But if ANGELS can weep, sure MAN may repine,
May weep in mute grief o’er thy low-laid shrine.
5.
And did I then say, for the altar of glory,
That the earliest, the loveliest of flowers I’d entwine, 30
Though with millions of blood-reeking victims ‘twas gory,
Though the tears of the widow polluted its shrine,
Though around it the orphans, the fatherless pine?
Oh! Fame, all thy glories I’d yield for a tear
To shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. 35
LOVE.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1811.
The title is Rossetti’s (1870).)
Why is it said thou canst not live
In a youthful breast and fair,
Since thou eternal life canst give,
Canst bloom for ever there?
Since withering pain no power possessed, 5
Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,
Nor time’s dread victor, death, confessed,
Though bathed with his poison dew,
Still thou retain’st unchanging bloom,
Fixed tranquil, even in the tomb. 10
And oh! when on the blest, reviving,
The day-star dawns of love,
Each energy of soul surviving
More vivid, soars above,
Hast thou ne’er felt a rapturous thrill, 15
Like June’s warm breath, athwart thee fly,
O’er each idea then to steal,
When other passions die?
Felt it in some wild noonday dream,
When sitting by the lonely stream, 20
Where Silence says, ‘Mine is the dell’;
And not a murmur from the plain,
And not an echo from the fell,
Disputes her silent reign.
ON A FETE AT CARLTON HOUSE: FRAGMENT.
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1811.)
By the mossy brink,
With me the Prince shall sit and think;
Shall muse in visioned Regency,
Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.
TO A STAR.
(Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1811.
The title is Rossetti’s (1870).)
Sweet star, which gleaming o’er the darksome scene
Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance fliest,
Spanglet of light on evening’s shadowy veil,
Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless lake,
Lighting the hour of sacred love; more sweet 5
Than the expiring morn-star’s paly fires: —
Sweet star! When wearied Nature sinks to sleep,
And all is hushed, — all, save the voice of Love,
Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy blast
Of soft Favonius, which at intervals 10
Sighs in the ear of stillness, art thou aught but
Lulling the slaves of interest to repose
With that mild, pitying gaze? Oh, I would look
In thy dear beam till every bond of sense
Became enamoured — 15
TO MARY WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1810-11.)
1.
Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye:
Firmness dare to borrow
From the wreck of destiny;
For the ray morn’s bloom revealing 5
Can never boast so bright an hue
As that which mocks concealing,
And sheds its loveliest light on you.
2.
Yet is the tie departed
Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss? 10
Has it left thee broken-hearted
In a world so cold as this?
Yet, though, fainting fair one,
Sorrow’s self thy cup has given,
Dream thou’lt meet thy dear one,
Never more to part, in Heaven. 15
3.
Existence would I barter
For a dream so dear as thine,
And smile to die a martyr
On affection’s bloodless shrine. 20
Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,
If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.
A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS: FROM FACTS, 1811.
(Published (from Esdaile manuscript with title as above) by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. Rossetti’s title is “Mother and Son”.)
1.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray
Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears, 5
Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul’s imperishable energy.
She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel 10
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.
2.
One only son’s love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die, 15
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,
Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant’s bloodhounds forced the child
For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield —
Bend to another’s will — become a thing 20
More senseless than the sword of battlefield —
Then did she feel keen sorrow’s keenest sting;
And many ye
ars had passed ere comfort they would bring.
3.
For seven years did this poor woman live
In unparticipated solitude. 25
Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude
Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.
If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.
The gleanings of precarious charity
Her scantiness of food did scarce supply. 30
The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt
Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:
Each arrow of the season’s change she felt.
Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,
One only hope: it was — once more to see her son. 35
4.
It was an eve of June, when every star
Spoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.
She rested on the moor. ‘Twas such an eve
When first her soul began indeed to grieve:
Then he was here; now he is very far. 40
The sweetness of the balmy evening
A sorrow o’er her aged soul did fling,
Yet not devoid of rapture’s mingled tear:
A balm was in the poison of the sting.
This aged sufferer for many a year 45
Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed
A sigh — and turning round, clasped William to her breast!
5.
And, though his form was wasted by the woe
Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak,
Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek 50
Of slavery’s violence and scorn did speak,
Yet did the aged woman’s bosom glow.
The vital fire seemed re-illumed within
By this sweet unexpected welcoming.
Oh, consummation of the fondest hope 55
That ever soared on Fancy’s wildest wing!
Oh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!
Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,
When THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!
6.
Her son, compelled, the country’s foes had fought, 60
Had bled in battle; and the stern control
Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul
Utterly poisoned life’s unmingled bowl,
And unsubduable evils on him brought.
He was the shadow of the lusty child 65
Who, when the time of summer season smiled,
Did earn for her a meal of honesty,
And with affectionate discourse beguiled
The keen attacks of pain and poverty;
Till Power, as envying her this only joy, 70
From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 21