Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing

  With the unintermitted blood, which there

  Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air

  The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) 100

  Continuously prolonged, and ending never,

  Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled

  Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world;

  Scarce visible from extreme loveliness.

  Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress 105

  And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress

  The air of her own speed has disentwined,

  The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;

  And in the soul a wild odour is felt

  Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt 110

  Into the bosom of a frozen bud. —

  See where she stands! a mortal shape indued

  With love and life and light and deity,

  And motion which may change but cannot die;

  An image of some bright Eternity; 115

  A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour

  Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender

  Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love

  Under whose motions life’s dull billows move;

  A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning; 120

  A Vision like incarnate April, warning,

  With smiles and tears, Frost the Anatomy

  Into his summer grave.

  Ah, woe is me!

  What have I dared? where am I lifted? how

  Shall I descend, and perish not? I know 125

  That Love makes all things equal: I have heard

  By mine own heart this joyous truth averred:

  The spirit of the worm beneath the sod

  In love and worship, blends itself with God.

  Spouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate 130

  Whose course has been so starless! O too late

  Beloved! O too soon adored, by me!

  For in the fields of Immortality

  My spirit should at first have worshipped thine,

  A divine presence in a place divine; 135

  Or should have moved beside it on this earth,

  A shadow of that substance, from its birth;

  But not as now: — I love thee; yes, I feel

  That on the fountain of my heart a seal

  Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 140

  For thee, since in those

  TEARS thou hast delight.

  We — are we not formed, as notes of music are,

  For one another, though dissimilar;

  Such difference without discord, as can make

  Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake 145

  As trembling leaves in a continuous air?

  Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare

  Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked.

  I never was attached to that great sect,

  Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 150

  Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend,

  And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend

  To cold oblivion, though it is in the code

  Of modern morals, and the beaten road

  Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, 155

  Who travel to their home among the dead

  By the broad highway of the world, and so

  With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe,

  The dreariest and the longest journey go.

  True Love in this differs from gold and clay, 160

  That to divide is not to take away.

  Love is like understanding, that grows bright,

  Gazing on many truths; ‘tis like thy light,

  Imagination! which from earth and sky,

  And from the depths of human fantasy, 165

  As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills

  The Universe with glorious beams, and kills

  Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow

  Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow

  The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, 170

  The life that wears, the spirit that creates

  One object, and one form, and builds thereby

  A sepulchre for its eternity.

  Mind from its object differs most in this:

  Evil from good; misery from happiness; 175

  The baser from the nobler; the impure

  And frail, from what is clear and must endure.

  If you divide suffering and dross, you may

  Diminish till it is consumed away;

  If you divide pleasure and love and thought, 180

  Each part exceeds the whole; and we know not

  How much, while any yet remains unshared,

  Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared:

  This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw

  The unenvied light of hope; the eternal law 185

  By which those live, to whom this world of life

  Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife

  Tills for the promise of a later birth

  The wilderness of this Elysian earth.

  There was a Being whom my spirit oft 190

  Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft,

  In the clear golden prime of my youth’s dawn,

  Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn,

  Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves

  Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves 195

  Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor

  Paved her light steps; — on an imagined shore,

  Under the gray beak of some promontory

  She met me, robed in such exceeding glory,

  That I beheld her not. In solitudes 200

  Her voice came to me through the whispering woods,

  And from the fountains, and the odours deep

  Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep

  Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there,

  Breathed but of HER to the enamoured air; 205

  And from the breezes whether low or loud,

  And from the rain of every passing cloud,

  And from the singing of the summer-birds,

  And from all sounds, all silence. In the words

  Of antique verse and high romance, — in form, 210

  Sound, colour — in whatever checks that Storm

  Which with the shattered present chokes the past;

  And in that best philosophy, whose taste

  Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom

  As glorious as a fiery martyrdom; 215

  Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. —

  Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth

  I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire,

  And towards the lodestar of my one desire,

  I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 220

  Is as a dead leaf’s in the owlet light,

  When it would seek in Hesper’s setting sphere

  A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre,

  As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. —

  But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, 225

  Passed, like a God throned on a winged planet,

  Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it,

  Into the dreary cone of our life’s shade;

  And as a man with mighty loss dismayed,

  I would have followed, though the grave between 230

  Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen:

  When a voice said:—’O thou of hearts the weakest,

  The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.’

  Then I—’Where?’ — the world’s echo answered ‘where?’

  And in that silence, and in my despair, 235

  I questioned every tongueless wind that flew

  Over my tower of mourning, if it knew

  Whither ‘twas fled, this soul
out of my soul;

  And murmured names and spells which have control

  Over the sightless tyrants of our fate; 240

  But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate

  The night which closed on her; nor uncreate

  That world within this Chaos, mine and me,

  Of which she was the veiled Divinity,

  The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her: 245

  And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear

  And every gentle passion sick to death,

  Feeding my course with expectation’s breath,

  Into the wintry forest of our life;

  And struggling through its error with vain strife, 250

  And stumbling in my weakness and my haste,

  And half bewildered by new forms, I passed,

  Seeking among those untaught foresters

  If I could find one form resembling hers,

  In which she might have masked herself from me. 255

  There, — One, whose voice was venomed melody

  Sate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers:

  The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers,

  Her touch was as electric poison, — flame

  Out of her looks into my vitals came, 260

  And from her living cheeks and bosom flew

  A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew

  Into the core of my green heart, and lay

  Upon its leaves; until, as hair grown gray

  O’er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime 265

  With ruins of unseasonable time.

  In many mortal forms I rashly sought

  The shadow of that idol of my thought.

  And some were fair — but beauty dies away:

  Others were wise — but honeyed words betray: 270

  And One was true — oh! why not true to me?

  Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee,

  I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay,

  Wounded and weak and panting; the cold day

  Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. 275

  When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again

  Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed

  As like the glorious shape which I had d reamed

  As is the Moon, whose changes ever run

  Into themselves, to the eternal Sun; 280

  The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven’s bright isles,

  Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles,

  That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame

  Which ever is transformed, yet still the same,

  And warms not but illumines. Young and fair 285

  As the descended Spirit of that sphere,

  She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night

  From its own darkness, until all was bright

  Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind,

  And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, 290

  She led me to a cave in that wild place,

  And sate beside me, with her downward face

  Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon

  Waxing and waning o’er Endymion.

  And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 295

  And all my being became bright or dim

  As the Moon’s image in a summer sea,

  According as she smiled or frowned on me;

  And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed:

  Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead: — 300

  For at her silver voice came Death and Life,

  Unmindful each of their accustomed strife,

  Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother,

  The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother,

  And through the cavern without wings they flew, 305

  And cried ‘Away, he is not of our crew.’

  I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep.

  What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep,

  Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips

  Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse; — 310

  And how my soul was as a lampless sea,

  And who was then its Tempest; and when She,

  The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost

  Crept o’er those waters, till from coast to coast

  The moving billows of my being fell 315

  Into a death of ice, immovable; —

  And then — what earthquakes made it gape and split,

  The white Moon smiling all the while on it,

  These words conceal: — If not, each word would be

  The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me! 320

  At length, into the obscure Forest came

  The Vision I had sought through grief and shame.

  Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns

  Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn’s,

  And from her presence life was radiated 325

  Through the gray earth and branches bare and dead;

  So that her way was paved, and roofed above

  With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love;

  And music from her respiration spread

  Like light, — all other sounds were penetrated 330

  By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound,

  So that the savage winds hung mute around;

  And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair

  Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air:

  Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, 335

  When light is changed to love, this glorious One

  Floated into the cavern where I lay,

  And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay

  Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below

  As smoke by fire, and in her beauty’s glow 340

  I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night

  Was penetrating me with living light:

  I knew it was the Vision veiled from me

  So many years — that it was Emily.

  Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, 345

  This world of loves, this ME; and into birth

  Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart

  Magnetic might into its central heart;

  And lift its billows and its mists, and guide

  By everlasting laws, each wind and tide 350

  To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave;

  And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave

  Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers

  The armies of the rainbow-winged showers;

  And, as those married lights, which from the towers 355

  Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe

  In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe;

  And all their many-mingled influence blend,

  If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end; —

  So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway 360

  Govern my sphere of being, night and day!

  Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might;

  Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light;

  And, through the shadow of the seasons three,

  From Spring to Autumn’s sere maturity, 365

  Light it into the Winter of the tomb,

  Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom.

  Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce,

  Who drew the heart of this frail Universe

  Towards thine own; till, wrecked in that convulsion, 370

  Alternating attraction and repulsion,

  Thine went astray and that was rent in twain;

  Oh, float into our azure heaven again!

  Be there Love’s folding-star at thy return;

  The living Sun will feed thee from its urn 375

  Of golden fire; the Moon will veil her horn

  In thy last smiles; adoring Even and Morn

  Will worship thee with incense of calm breath

  And lights and shadows; as the star of Death

  And Birth i
s worshipped by those sisters wild 380

  Called Hope and Fear — upon the heart are piled

  Their offerings, — of this sacrifice divine

  A World shall be the altar.

  Lady mine,

  Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth

  Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth 385

  Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes,

  Will be as of the trees of Paradise.

  The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.

  To whatsoe’er of dull mortality

  Is mine, remain a vestal sister still; 390

  To the intense, the deep, the imperishable,

  Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united

  Even as a bride, delighting and delighted.

  The hour is come: — the destined Star has risen

  Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 395

  The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set

  The sentinels — but true Love never yet

  Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence:

  Like lightning, with invisible violence

  Piercing its continents; like Heaven’s free breath, 400

  Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death,

  Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way

  Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array

  Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they;

  For it can burst his charnel, and make free 405

  The limbs in chains, the heart in agony,

  The soul in dust and chaos.

  Emily,

  A ship is floating in the harbour now,

  A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;

  There is a path on the sea’s azure floor, 410

  No keel has ever ploughed that path before;

  The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;

  The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;

  The merry mariners are bold and free:

  Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me? 415

  Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest

  Is a far Eden of the purple East;

  And we between her wings will sit, while Night,

  And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,

  Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 420

  Treading each other’s heels, unheededly.

  It is an isle under Ionian skies,

  Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,

  And, for the harbours are not safe and good,

  This land would have remained a solitude 425

  But for some pastoral people native there,

  Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air

  Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,

  Simple and spirited; innocent and bold.

  The blue Aegean girds this chosen home, 430

  With ever-changing sound and light and foam,

  Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;