Percy Bysshe Shelley

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by Percy Bysshe Shelley


  Which interpenetrating all the …

  it rolls from realm to realm

  And age to age, and in its ebb and flow 25

  Impels the generations

  To their appointed place,

  Whilst the high Arbiter

  Beholds the strife, and at the appointed time

  Sends His decrees veiled in eternal… 30

  Within the circuit of this pendent orb

  There lies an antique region, on which fell

  The dews of thought in the world’s golden dawn

  Earliest and most benign, and from it sprung

  Temples and cities and immortal forms 35

  And harmonies of wisdom and of song,

  And thoughts, and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair.

  And when the sun of its dominion failed,

  And when the winter of its glory came,

  The winds that stripped it bare blew on and swept 40

  That dew into the utmost wildernesses

  In wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawed

  The unmaternal bosom of the North.

  Haste, sons of God, … for ye beheld,

  Reluctant, or consenting, or astonished, 45

  The stern decrees go forth, which heaped on Greece

  Ruin and degradation and despair.

  A fourth now waits: assemble, sons of God,

  To speed or to prevent or to suspend,

  If, as ye dream, such power be not withheld, 50

  The unaccomplished destiny.

  …

  CHORUS:

  The curtain of the Universe

  Is rent and shattered,

  The splendour-winged worlds disperse

  Like wild doves scattered. 55

  Space is roofless and bare,

  And in the midst a cloudy shrine,

  Dark amid thrones of light.

  In the blue glow of hyaline

  Golden worlds revolve and shine. 60

  In … flight

  From every point of the Infinite,

  Like a thousand dawns on a single night

  The splendours rise and spread;

  And through thunder and darkness dread 65

  Light and music are radiated,

  And in their pavilioned chariots led

  By living wings high overhead

  The giant Powers move,

  Gloomy or bright as the thrones they fill. 70

  …

  A chaos of light and motion

  Upon that glassy ocean.

  …

  The senate of the Gods is met,

  Each in his rank and station set;

  There is silence in the spaces — 75

  Lo! Satan, Christ, and Mahomet

  Start from their places!

  CHRIST:

  Almighty Father!

  Low-kneeling at the feet of Destiny

  …

  There are two fountains in which spirits weep 80

  When mortals err, Discord and Slavery named,

  And with their bitter dew two Destinies

  Filled each their irrevocable urns; the third

  Fiercest and mightiest, mingled both, and added

  Chaos and Death, and slow Oblivion’s lymph, 85

  And hate and terror, and the poisoned rain

  …

  The Aurora of the nations. By this brow

  Whose pores wept tears of blood, by these wide wounds,

  By this imperial crown of agony,

  By infamy and solitude and death, 90

  For this I underwent, and by the pain

  Of pity for those who would … for me

  The unremembered joy of a revenge,

  For this I felt — by Plato’s sacred light,

  Of which my spirit was a burning morrow — 95

  By Greece and all she cannot cease to be.

  Her quenchless words, sparks of immortal truth,

  Stars of all night — her harmonies and forms,

  Echoes and shadows of what Love adores

  In thee, I do compel thee, send forth Fate, 100

  Thy irrevocable child: let her descend,

  A seraph-winged Victory [arrayed]

  In tempest of the omnipotence of God

  Which sweeps through all things.

  From hollow leagues, from Tyranny which arms 105

  Adverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies

  To stamp, as on a winged serpent’s seed,

  Upon the name of Freedom; from the storm

  Of faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickens

  The solid heart of enterprise; from all 110

  By which the holiest dreams of highest spirits

  Are stars beneath the dawn…

  She shall arise

  Victorious as the world arose from Chaos!

  And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed

  Their presence in the beauty and the light 115

  Of Thy first smile, O Father, — as they gather

  The spirit of Thy love which paves for them

  Their path o’er the abyss, till every sphere

  Shall be one living Spirit, — so shall Greece —

  SATAN:

  Be as all things beneath the empyrean, 120

  Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny,

  Thou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns?

  Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed

  Which pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn;

  For seest thou not beneath this crystal floor 125

  The innumerable worlds of golden light

  Which are my empire, and the least of them

  which thou wouldst redeem from me?

  Know’st thou not them my portion?

  Or wouldst rekindle the … strife 130

  Which our great Father then did arbitrate

  Which he assigned to his competing sons

  Each his apportioned realm?

  Thou Destiny,

  Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence

  Of Him who tends thee forth, whate’er thy task, 135

  Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be mine

  Thy trophies, whether Greece again become

  The fountain in the desert whence the earth

  Shall drink of freedom, which shall give it strength

  To suffer, or a gulf of hollow death 140

  To swallow all delight, all life, all hope.

  Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no less

  Than of the Father’s; but lest thou shouldst faint,

  The winged hounds, Famine and Pestilence,

  Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forked snake 145

  Insatiate Superstition still shall…

  The earth behind thy steps, and War shall hover

  Above, and Fraud shall gape below, and Change

  Shall flit before thee on her dragon wings,

  Convulsing and consuming, and I add 150

  Three vials of the tears which daemons weep

  When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death

  Pass triumphing over the thorns of life,

  Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares,

  Trampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates. 155

  The first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure,

  Glory and science and security,

  On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree,

  Then pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes.

  The second Tyranny —

  CHRIST:

  Obdurate spirit! 160

  Thou seest but the Past in the To-come.

  Pride is thy error and thy punishment.

  Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds

  Are more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops

  Before the Power that wields and kindles them. 165

  True greatness asks not space, true excellence

  Lives in the Spirit of all things that live,

  Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine.

&n
bsp; …

  MAHOMET:

  …Haste thou and fill the waning crescent

  With beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow 170

  Of Christian night rolled back upon the West,

  When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph

  From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow.

  …

  Wake, thou Word

  Of God, and from the throne of Destiny 175

  Even to the utmost limit of thy way

  May Triumph

  …

  Be thou a curse on them whose creed

  Divides and multiplies the most high God.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

  MAHMUD. HASSAN. DAOOD. AHASUERUS, A JEW. CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN. [THE PHANTOM OF MAHOMET II. (OMITTED, EDITION 1822.)] MESSENGERS, SLAVES, AND ATTENDANTS.

  SCENE: CONSTANTINOPLE.

  TIME: SUNSET.

  SCENE: A TERRACE ON THE SERAGLIO. MAHMUD SLEEPING, AN INDIAN SLAVE SITTING BESIDE HIS COUCH.

  HELLAS

  CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN:

  We strew these opiate flowers

  On thy restless pillow, —

  They were stripped from Orient bowers,

  By the Indian billow.

  Be thy sleep 5

  Calm and deep,

  Like theirs who fell — not ours who weep!

  INDIAN:

  Away, unlovely dreams!

  Away, false shapes of sleep

  Be his, as Heaven seems, 10

  Clear, and bright, and deep!

  Soft as love, and calm as death,

  Sweet as a summer night without a breath.

  CHORUS:

  Sleep, sleep! our song is laden

  With the soul of slumber; 15

  It was sung by a Samian maiden,

  Whose lover was of the number

  Who now keep

  That calm sleep

  Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. 20

  INDIAN:

  I touch thy temples pale!

  I breathe my soul on thee!

  And could my prayers avail,

  All my joy should be

  Dead, and I would live to weep, 25

  So thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep.

  CHORUS:

  Breathe low, low

  The spell of the mighty mistress now!

  When Conscience lulls her sated snake,

  And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake. 30

  Breathe low — low

  The words which, like secret fire, shall flow

  Through the veins of the frozen earth — low, low!

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  Life may change, but it may fly not;

  Hope may vanish, but can die not; 35

  Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;

  Love repulsed, — but it returneth!

  SEMICHORUS 2:

  Yet were life a charnel where

  Hope lay coffined with Despair;

  Yet were truth a sacred lie, 40

  Love were lust —

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  If Liberty

  Lent not life its soul of light,

  Hope its iris of delight,

  Truth its prophet’s robe to wear,

  Love its power to give and bear. 45

  CHORUS:

  In the great morning of the world,

  The Spirit of God with might unfurled

  The flag of Freedom over Chaos,

  And all its banded anarchs fled,

  Like vultures frighted from Imaus, 50

  Before an earthquake’s tread. —

  So from Time’s tempestuous dawn

  Freedom’s splendour burst and shone: —

  Thermopylae and Marathon

  Caught like mountains beacon-lighted, 55

  The springing Fire. — The winged glory

  On Philippi half-alighted,

  Like an eagle on a promontory.

  Its unwearied wings could fan

  The quenchless ashes of Milan. 60

  From age to age, from man to man,

  It lived; and lit from land to land

  Florence, Albion, Switzerland.

  Then night fell; and, as from night,

  Reassuming fiery flight, 65

  From the West swift Freedom came,

  Against the course of Heaven and doom.

  A second sun arrayed in flame,

  To burn, to kindle, to illume.

  From far Atlantis its young beams 70

  Chased the shadows and the dreams.

  France, with all her sanguine steams,

  Hid, but quenched it not; again

  Through clouds its shafts of glory rain

  From utmost Germany to Spain. 75

  As an eagle fed with morning

  Scorns the embattled tempest’s warning,

  When she seeks her aerie hanging

  In the mountain-cedar’s hair,

  And her brood expect the clanging 80

  Of her wings through the wild air,

  Sick with famine: — Freedom, so

  To what of Greece remaineth now

  Returns; her hoary ruins glow

  Like Orient mountains lost in day; 85

  Beneath the safety of her wings

  Her renovated nurslings prey,

  And in the naked lightenings

  Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.

  Let Freedom leave — where’er she flies, 90

  A Desert, or a Paradise:

  Let the beautiful and the brave

  Share her glory, or a grave.

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  With the gifts of gladness

  Greece did thy cradle strew; 95

  SEMICHORUS 2:

  With the tears of sadness

  Greece did thy shroud bedew!

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  With an orphan’s affection

  She followed thy bier through Time;

  SEMICHORUS 2:

  And at thy resurrection 100

  Reappeareth, like thou, sublime!

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  If Heaven should resume thee,

  To Heaven shall her spirit ascend;

  SEMICHORUS 2:

  If Hell should entomb thee,

  To Hell shall her high hearts bend. 105

  SEMICHORUS 1:

  If Annihilation —

  SEMICHORUS 2:

  Dust let her glories be!

  And a name and a nation

  Be forgotten, Freedom, with thee!

  INDIAN:

  His brow grows darker — breathe not — move not! 110

  He starts — he shudders — ye that love not,

  With your panting loud and fast,

  Have awakened him at last.

  MAHMUD [STARTING FROM HIS SLEEP]:

  Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate!

  What! from a cannonade of three short hours? 115

  ‘Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus

  Cannot be practicable yet — who stirs?

  Stand to the match; that when the foe prevails

  One spark may mix in reconciling ruin

  The conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower 120

  Into the gap — wrench off the roof!

  [ENTER HASSAN.]

  Ha! what!

  The truth of day lightens upon my dream

  And I am Mahmud still.

  HASSAN:

  Your Sublime Highness

  Is strangely moved.

  MAHMUD:

  The times do cast strange shadows

  On those who watch and who must rule their course, 125

  Lest they, being first in peril as in glory,

  Be whelmed in the fierce ebb: — and these are of them.

  Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me

  As thus from sleep into the troubled day;

  It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, 130

  Leaving no figure upon memory’s glass.

  Would that — no matter. Thou d
idst say thou knewest

  A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle

  Of strange and secret and forgotten things.

  I bade thee summon him:—’tis said his tribe 135

  Dream, and are wise interpreters of dreams.

  HASSAN:

  The Jew of whom I spake is old, — so old

  He seems to have outlived a world’s decay;

  The hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean

  Seem younger still than he; — his hair and beard 140

  Are whiter than the tempest-sifted snow;

  His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries

  Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct

  With light, and to the soul that quickens them

  Are as the atoms of the mountain-drift 145

  To the winter wind: — but from his eye looks forth

  A life of unconsumed thought which pierces

  The Present, and the Past, and the To-come.

  Some say that this is he whom the great prophet

  Jesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery, 150

  Mocked with the curse of immortality.

  Some feign that he is Enoch: others dream

  He was pre-adamite and has survived

  Cycles of generation and of ruin.

  The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence 155

  And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh,

  Deep contemplation, and unwearied study,

  In years outstretched beyond the date of man,

  May have attained to sovereignty and science

  Over those strong and secret things and thoughts 160

  Which others fear and know not.

  MAHMUD:

  I would talk

  With this old Jew.

  HASSAN:

  Thy will is even now

  Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern

  ‘Mid the Demonesi, less accessible

  Than thou or God! He who would question him 165

  Must sail alone at sunset, where the stream

  Of Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles,

  When the young moon is westering as now,

  And evening airs wander upon the wave;

  And when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, 170

  Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow

  Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water,

  Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud

  ‘Ahasuerus!’ and the caverns round

  Will answer ‘Ahasuerus!’ If his prayer 175

  Be granted, a faint meteor will arise

  Lighting him over Marmora, and a wind

  Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest,

  And with the wind a storm of harmony

  Unutterably sweet, and pilot him 180

  Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus:

  Thence at the hour and place and circumstance

  Fit for the matter of their conference

  The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare

  Win the desired communion — but that shout 185

  Bodes —

  [A SHOUT WITHIN.]

 

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