Said my guide, ‘those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, 235
‘Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage — names which the world thinks always old,
‘For in the battle Life and they did wage,
She remained conqueror. I was overcome 240
By my own heart alone, which neither age,
‘Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object.’—’Let them pass,’
I cried, ‘the world and its mysterious doom
‘Is not so much more glorious than it was, 245
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass
‘As the old faded.’—’Figures ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
We have but thrown, as those before us threw, 250
‘Our shadows on it as it passed away.
But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day;
‘All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; 255
The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.
‘And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.
‘And near him walk the … twain, 260
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.
‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; 265
‘The other long outlived both woes and wars,
Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous key of Truth’s eternal doors,
‘If Bacon’s eagle spirit had not lept
Like lightning out of darkness — he compelled 270
The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept
‘To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
See the great bards of elder time, who quelled
‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain 275
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein
‘Of those who are infected with it — I
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
And so my words have seeds of misery — 180
‘Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.’
And then he pointed to a company,
‘Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs
Of Caesar’s crime, from him to Constantine;
The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares 285
Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
And Gregory and John, and men divine,
Who rose like shadows between man and God;
Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, 290
Was worshipped by the world o’er which they strode,
For the true sun it quenched—’Their power was given
But to destroy,’ replied the leader:—’I
Am one of those who have created, even
‘If it be but a world of agony.’ — 295
‘Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?
How did thy course begin?’ I said, ‘and why?
‘Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought —
Speak!’—’Whence I am, I partly seem to know, 300
‘And how and by what paths I have been brought
To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess; —
Why this should be, my mind can compass not;
‘Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less; —
But follow thou, and from spectator turn 305
Actor or victim in this wretchedness,
‘And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
From thee. Now listen: — In the April prime,
When all the forest-tips began to burn
‘With kindling green, touched by the azure clime 310
Of the young season, I was laid asleep
Under a mountain, which from unknown time
‘Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;
And from it came a gentle rivulet,
Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep 315
‘Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet
The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget
‘All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,
Which they had known before that hour of rest; 320
A sleeping mother then would dream not of
‘Her only child who died upon the breast
At eventide — a king would mourn no more
The crown of which his brows were dispossessed
‘When the sun lingered o’er his ocean floor 325
To gild his rival’s new prosperity.
‘Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
‘Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee,
The thought of which no other sleep will quell,
Nor other music blot from memory, 330
‘So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell;
And whether life had been before that sleep
The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell
‘Like this harsh world in which I woke to weep,
I know not. I arose, and for a space 335
The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,
Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
Of light diviner than the common sun
Sheds on the common earth, and all the place
‘Was filled with magic sounds woven into one 340
Oblivious melody, confusing sense
Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;
‘And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence
Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
And the sun’s image radiantly intense 345
‘Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
Like gold, and threaded all the forest’s maze
With winding paths of emerald fire; there stood
‘Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze 350
Of his own glory, on the vibrating
Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
‘A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling
Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,
And the invisible rain did ever sing
‘A silver music on the mossy lawn; 355
And still before me on the dusky grass,
Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:
‘In her right hand she bore a crystal glass,
Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour
Fell from her as she moved under the mass 360
‘Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender,
Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,
Glided along the river, and did bend her
‘Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream 365
That whispered with delight to be its pillow.
‘As one enamoured is upborne in dream
O’er lily-paven lakes, mid silver mist
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
‘Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed 370
The dancing foam; partly to glide along
The air which roughened the moist amethyst,
‘Or the faint morning beams that fell among
The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
> And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song 375
‘Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,
And falling drops, moved in a measure new
Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,
‘Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, 380
Dances i’ the wind, where never eagle flew;
‘And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot
The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon
‘All that was, seemed as if it had been not; 385
And all the gazer’s mind was strewn beneath
Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,
‘Trampled its sparks into the dust of death
As day upon the threshold of the east
Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath 390
‘Of darkness re-illumine even the least
Of heaven’s living eyes — like day she came,
Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
‘To move, as one between desire and shame
Suspended, I said — If, as it doth seem, 395
Thou comest from the realm without a name
‘Into this valley of perpetual dream,
Show whence I came, and where I am, and why —
Pass not away upon the passing stream.
‘Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply. 400
And as a shut lily stricken by the wand
Of dewy morning’s vital alchemy,
‘I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
And suddenly my brain became as sand 405
‘Where the first wave had more than half erased
The track of deer on desert Labrador;
Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,
‘Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,
Until the second bursts; — so on my sight 410
Burst a new vision, never seen before,
‘And the fair shape waned in the coming light,
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
‘Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops; 415
And as the presence of that fairest planet,
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes
‘That his day’s path may end as he began it,
In that star’s smile, whose light is like the scent
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, 420
‘Or the soft note in which his dear lament
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content;
‘So knew I in that light’s severe excess
The presence of that Shape which on the stream 425
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
‘More dimly than a day-appearing dream,
The host of a forgotten form of sleep;
A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam
‘Through the sick day in which we wake to weep 430
Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
‘Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;
But the new Vision, and the cold bright car,
With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed 435
‘The forest, and as if from some dread war
Triumphantly returning, the loud million
Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.
‘A moving arch of victory, the vermilion
And green and azure plumes of Iris had 440
Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
‘And underneath aethereal glory clad
The wilderness, and far before her flew
The tempest of the splendour, which forbade
‘Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crew 445
Seemed in that light, like atomies to dance
Within a sunbeam; — some upon the new
‘Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance
The grassy vesture of the desert, played,
Forgetful of the chariot’s swift advance; 450
‘Others stood gazing, till within the shade
Of the great mountain its light left them dim;
Others outspeeded it; and others made
‘Circles around it, like the clouds that swim
Round the high moon in a bright sea of air; 455
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
‘The chariot and the captives fettered there: —
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
Fell into the same track at last, and were
‘Borne onward. — I among the multitude 460
Was swept — me, sweetest flowers delayed not long;
Me, not the shadow nor the solitude;
‘Me, not that falling stream’s Lethean song;
Me, not the phantom of that early Form
Which moved upon its motion — but among 465
‘The thickest billows of that living storm
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.
‘Before the chariot had begun to climb
The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, 470
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
‘Of him who from the lowest depths of hell,
Through every paradise and through all glory,
Love led serene, and who returned to tell
‘The words of hate and awe; the wondrous story 475
How all things are transfigured except Love;
For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,
‘The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
The sphere whose light is melody to lovers —
A wonder worthy of his rhyme. — The grove 480
‘Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
The earth was gray with phantoms, and the air
Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
‘A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening, 485
Strange night upon some Indian isle; — thus were
‘Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing
‘Were lost in the white day; others like elves 490
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;
‘And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar hands,…
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes 495
‘Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures; others played
Under the crown which girt with empire
‘A baby’s or an idiot’s brow, and made
Their nests in it. The old anatomies 500
Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade
‘Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
To reassume the delegated power,
Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,
‘Who made this earth their charnel. Others more 505
Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar;
Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist; — 510
‘And others, like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
‘Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose fai
nt lids they rained 515
In drops of sorrow. I became aware
‘Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
The track in which we moved. After brief space,
From every form the beauty slowly waned;
‘From every firmest limb and fairest face 520
The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
The action and the shape without the grace
‘Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,
Desire, like a lioness bereft 525
‘Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one
Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
‘In autumn evening from a poplar tree. 530
Each like himself and like each other were
At first; but some distorted seemed to be
‘Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;
And of this stuff the car’s creative ray
Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,
‘As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way 535
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
And form of all; and long before the day
‘Was old, the joy which waked like heaven’s glance
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance, 540
‘And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside; —
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,
And least of strength and beauty did abide.
‘Then, what is life? I cried.’ —
CANCELLED OPENING OF THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.
[Published by Miss M. Blind, “Westminster Review”, July, 1870.]
Out of the eastern shadow of the Earth,
Amid the clouds upon its margin gray
Scattered by Night to swathe in its bright birth
In gold and fleecy snow the infant Day,
The glorious Sun arose: beneath his light, 5
The earth and all…
TRANSLATIONS
CONTENTS
HYMN TO MERCURY.
HOMER’S HYMN TO CASTOR AND POLLUX.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE MOON.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE SUN.
HOMER’S HYMN TO THE EARTH: MOTHER OF ALL.
HOMER’S HYMN TO MINERVA.
HOMER’S HYMN TO VENUS.
THE CYCLOPS.
SILENUS. ULYSSES. CHORUS OF SATYRS. THE CYCLOPS.
EPIGRAMS.
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF ADONIS.
FRAGMENT OF THE ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF BION.
PAN, ECHO, AND THE SATYR.
FROM VERGIL’S TENTH ECLOGUE.
FROM VERGIL’S FOURTH GEORGIC.
SONNET. DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 84