Percy Bysshe Shelley
Page 72
No — in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see. 225
56.
‘To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
57.
Thou art Justice — ne’er for gold 230
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England — thou
Shield’st alike the high and low.
58.
‘Thou art Wisdom — Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever 235
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
59.
‘Thou art Peace — never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all 240
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
60.
‘What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee. 245
61.
‘Thou art Love — the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
62.
‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make 250
War for thy beloved sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud — whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
63.
‘Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot 255
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.
64.
‘Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou — let deeds, not words, express 260
Thine exceeding loveliness.
65.
‘Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around. 265
66.
‘Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
67.
‘From the corners uttermost 270
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others’ misery or their own,
68.
‘From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old 277
Groan for pain, and weep for cold —
69.
‘From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife 280
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares —
70.
‘Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound 285
Of a wind alive around
71.
‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale —
72.
‘Ye who suffer woes untold, 291
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold —
73.
‘Let a vast assembly be, 295
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free —
74.
‘Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 300
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
75.
‘Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea, 305
Troops of armed emblazonry.
76.
‘Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses’ heels. 310
77.
‘Let the fixed bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
78.
Let the horsemen’s scimitars 315
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
79.
‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute, 320
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
80.
‘And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armed steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade 325
Through your phalanx undismayed.
81.
‘Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute, 330
82.
‘The old laws of England — they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo — Liberty! 335
83.
‘On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
84.
‘And if then the tyrants dare 340
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, —
What they like, that let them do.
85.
‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise, 345
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
86.
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak 350
In hot blushes on their cheek.
87.
‘Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand —
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street. 355
88.
‘And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
89.
‘And that slaughter to the Nation 360
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
90.
‘And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom 365
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again — again — again —
91.
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number —
Shake your chains to earth like dew 370
Which in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.’
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, edition Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The dedication To Mas-y first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st edition Sources of the text are (1) the e
ditio princeps, 1824; (2) editions 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow edition 1824); (3) an early and incomplete manuscript in Shelley’s handwriting (now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, who printed the results in his Examination of the Shelley manuscripts, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Shelley, the variations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman.
TO MARY (ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST).
1.
How, my dear Mary, — are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, 5
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.
2.
What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,
The youngest of inconstant April’s minions, 10
Because it cannot climb the purest sky,
Where the swan sings, amid the sun’s dominions?
Not thine. Thou knowest ‘tis its doom to die,
When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions
The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile, 15
Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.
3.
To thy fair feet a winged Vision came,
Whose date should have been longer than a day,
And o’er thy head did beat its wings for fame,
And in thy sight its fading plumes display; 20
The watery bow burned in the evening flame.
But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way —
And that is dead. — O, let me not believe
That anything of mine is fit to live!
4.
Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years 25
Considering and retouching Peter Bell;
Watering his laurels with the killing tears
Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell
Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres
Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well 30
May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil
The over-busy gardener’s blundering toil.
5.
My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature
As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise
Clothes for our grandsons — but she matches Peter, 35
Though he took nineteen years, and she three days
In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre
She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,
Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress
Like King Lear’s ‘looped and windowed raggedness.’ 40
6.
If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow
Scorched by Hell’s hyperequatorial climate
Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:
A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;
In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello. 45
If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate
Can shrive you of that sin, — if sin there be
In love, when it becomes idolatry.
THE WITCH OF ATLAS.
1.
Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, 50
Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth
All those bright natures which adorned its prime,
And left us nothing to believe in, worth
The pains of putting into learned rhyme,
A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain 55
Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.
2.
Her mother was one of the Atlantides:
The all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden
In his wide voyage o’er continents and seas
So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden 60
In the warm shadow of her loveliness; —
He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden
The chamber of gray rock in which she lay —
She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.
3.
‘Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour, 65
And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,
Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,
Round the red west when the sun dies in it:
And then into a meteor, such as caper
On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit: 70
Then, into one of those mysterious stars
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.
4.
Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent
Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden
With that bright sign the billows to indent 75
The sea-deserted sand — like children chidden,
At her command they ever came and went —
Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden
Took shape and motion: with the living form
Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. 80
5.
A lovely lady garmented in light
From her own beauty — deep her eyes, as are
Two openings of unfathomable night
Seen through a Temple’s cloven roof — her hair
Dark — the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight. 85
Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,
And her low voice was heard like love, and drew
All living things towards this wonder new.
6.
And first the spotted cameleopard came,
And then the wise and fearless elephant; 90
Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame
Of his own volumes intervolved; — all gaunt
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.
They drank before her at her sacred fount;
And every beast of beating heart grew bold, 95
Such gentleness and power even to behold.
7.
The brinded lioness led forth her young,
That she might teach them how they should forego
Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung
His sinews at her feet, and sought to know 100
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue
How he might be as gentle as the doe.
The magic circle of her voice and eyes
All savage natures did imparadise.
8.
And old Silenus, shaking a green stick 105
Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew
Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick
Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,
Teasing the God to sing them something new; 110
Till in this cave they found the lady lone,
Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.
9.
And universal Pan, ‘tis said, was there,
And though none saw him, — through the adamant
Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, 115
And through those living spirits, like a want,
He passed out of his everlasting lair
Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,
And felt that wondrous lady all alone, —
And she felt him, upon her emerald throne. 120
10.
And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,
And every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks,
Who drives her white waves over the green sea,
And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,
And quaint Priapus with his company, 125
All came, mu
ch wondering how the enwombed rocks
Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth; —
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.
11.
The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,
And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant — 130
Their spirits shook within them, as a flame
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:
Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,
Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt
Wet clefts, — and lumps neither alive nor dead, 135
Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.
12.
For she was beautiful — her beauty made
The bright world dim, and everything beside
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:
No thought of living spirit could abide, 140
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,
On any object in the world so wide,
On any hope within the circling skies,
But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.
13.
Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle 145
And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three
Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle
The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she
As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle
In the belated moon, wound skilfully; 150
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove —
A shadow for the splendour of her love.
14.
The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling
Were stored with magic treasures — sounds of air,
Which had the power all spirits of compelling, 155
Folded in cells of crystal silence there;
Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling
Will never die — yet ere we are aware,
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,
And the regret they leave remains alone. 160
15.
And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,
Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,
Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint
With the soft burthen of intensest bliss.
It was its work to bear to many a saint 165
Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,
Even Love’s: — and others white, green, gray, and black,
And of all shapes — and each was at her beck.
16.
And odours in a kind of aviary
Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, 170
Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy
Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;
As bats at the wired window of a dairy,
They beat their vans; and each was an adept,
When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds, 175
To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.
17.
And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might