The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Of heartless mirth which women, men, and boys
Wake in this scene of legal misery.
· · · · ·
TO THE REPUBLICANS OF NORTH AMERICA
I
BROTHERS! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar:
Yet in spirit oft I see
On thy wild and winding shore
5
Freedom’s bloodless banners wave,—
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished in the grave,—
See them drenched in sacred gore,—
Catch the warrior’s gasping breath
10
Murmuring ‘Liberty or death!’
II
Shout aloud! Let every slave,
Crouching at Corruption’s throne,
Start into a man, and brave
Racks and chains without a groan;
15
And the castle’s heartless glow,
And the hovel’s vice and woe,
Fade like gaudy flowers that blow—
Weeds that peep, and then are gone
Whilst, from misery’s ashes risen,
20
Love shall burst the captive’s prison.
III
Cotopaxi! bid the sound
Through thy sister mountains ring,
Till each valley smile around
At the blissful welcoming!
25
And, O thou stern Ocean deep,
Thou whose foamy billows sweep
Shores where thousands wake to weep
Whilst they curse a villain king,
On the winds that fan thy breast
30
Bear thou news of Freedom’s rest!
IV
Can the daystar dawn of love,
Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above
The fabric of a ruined world?
35
Never but to vengeance driven
When the patriot’s spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native Heaven!
There, to desolation hurled,
Widowed love may watch thy bier,
40
Balm thee with its dying tear.
TO IRELAND
I
BEAR witness, Erin! when thine injured isle
Sees summer on i verd at pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy curling deep!
5
Thou tree whose shadow o’er the Atlantic gave
Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave,
Its blossoms fade,
And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;
Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,
10
Whose chillness struck a canker to its root
II
I could stand
Upon thy shores, O Erin, and could count
The billows that, in their unceasing swell,
Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seem
15
An instrument in Time the giant’s grasp,
To burst the barriers of Eternity.
Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;
March on thy lonely way! The nations fall
Beneath thy noiseless footstep; pyramids
20
That for millenniums have defied the blast,
And laughed at lightnings, thou dost crush to nought.
Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,
Is but the fungus of a winter day
That thy light footstep presses into dust.
25
Thou art a conqueror, Time; all things give way
Before thee but the ‘fixed and virtuous will’;
The sacred sympathy of soul which was
When thou wert not, which shall be when thou perishest.
· · · · ·
ON ROBERT EMMET’S GRAVE
· · · · ·
VI
No trump tells thy virtues—the grave where they rest
With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,
Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed
Shall pass like a miss from the light of thy name.
VII
5
When the storm-cloud that lowers o’er the day-beam is gone,
Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,
She will smile through the tears of revival on thine.
THE RETROSPECT: CWM ELAN, 1812
A SCENE, which ’wildered fancy viewed
In the soul’s coldest solitude,
With that same scene when peaceful love
Flings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,
5
When mountain, meadow, wood and stream
With unalloying glory gleam,
And to the spirit’s ear and eye
Are unison and harmony.
The moonlight was my dearer day;
10
Then would I wander far away,
And, lingering on the wild brook’s shore
To hear its unremitting roar,
Would lose in the ideal flow
All sense of overwhelming woe;
15
Or at the noiseless noon of night
Would climb some heathy mountain’s height,
And listen to the mystic sound
That stole in fitful gasps around.
I joyed to see the streaks of day
20
Above the purple peaks decay,
And watch the latest line of light
Just mingling with the shades of night;
For day with me was time of woe
When even tears refused to flow;
25
Then would I stretch my languid frame
Beneath the wild woods’ gloomiest shade,
And try to quench the ceaseless flame
That on my withered vitals preyed;
Would close mine eyes and dream I were
30
On some remote and friendless plain,
And long to leave existence there,
If with it I might leave the pain
That with a finger cold and lean
Wrote madness on my withering mien.
35
It was not unrequited love
That bade my ’wildered spirit rove;
’Twas not the pride disdaining life,
That with this mortal world at strife
Would yield to the soul’s inward sense,
40
Then groan in human impotence,
And weep because it is not given
To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.
’Twas not that it the narrow sphere
Where Nature fixed my wayward fate
There was no friend or kindred dear
Formed to become that spirit’s mate,
Which, searching on tired pinion, found
Barren and cold repulse around;
Oh, no! yet each one sorrow gave
50
New graces to the narrow grave.
For broken vows had early quelled
The stainless spirit’s vestal flame;
Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled,
Then the envenomed arrow came,
55
And Apathy’s unaltering eye
Beamed coldness on the misery;
And early I had learned to scorn
The chains of clay that bound a soul
Panting to seize the wings of morn,
And where its vital fires were born
To soar, and spur the cold control
Which the vile slaves of earthly night
Would twine around its struggling flight.
Oh, many were the friends whom fame
65
Had linked with th
Whose magic marked among mankind
The casket of my unknown mind,
Which hidden from the vulgar glare
Imbibed no fleeting radiance there.
70
My darksome spirit sought — it found
A friendless solitude around.
For who that might undaunted stand,
The saviour of a sinking land,
Would crawl, its ruthless tyrant’s slave,
And fatten upon Freedom’s grave,
Though doomed with her to perish, where
The captive clasps abhorred despair.
They could not share the bosom’s feeling,
Which, passion’s every throb revealing,
80
Dared force on the world’s notice cold
Thoughts of unprofitable mould,
Who bask in Custom’s fickle ray,
Fit sunshine of such wintry day!
They could not in a twilight walk
Weave an impassioned web of talk,
Till mysteries the spirits press
In wild yet tender awfulness,
Then feel within our narrow sphere
How little yet how great we are!
90
But they might shine in courtly glare,
Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,
And might command where’er they move
A thing that bears the name of love;
They might be learned, witty, gay,
95
Foremost in fashion’s gilt array,
On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,
Be princes’ friends, but never mine!
Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,
Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,
100
Whence I would watch its lustre pale
Steal from the moon o’er yonder vale
Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast,
Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,
Ever its giant shade doth cast
105
On the tumultuous surge below:
Woods, to whose depths retires to die
The wounded Echo’s melody,
And whither this lone spirit bent
The footstep of a wild intent:
110
Meadows! whose green and span gled breast
These fevered limbs have often pressed,
Until the watchful fiend Despair
Slept in the soothing coolness there!
Have not your varied beauties seen
115
The sunken eye, the withering mien,
Sad traces of the unuttered pain
That froze my heart and burned my brain.
How changed since Nature’s summer form
Had last the power my grief to charm,
120
Since last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness,
Strange chaos of a mingled madness!
Changed!—not the loathsome worm that fed
In the dark mansions of the dead,
Now soaring through the fields of air,
And gathering purest nectar there,
A butterfly, whose million hues
The dazzled eye of wonder views,
Long lingering on a work so strange,
Has undergone so bright a change.
130
How do I feel my happiness?
I cannot tell, but they may guess
Whose every gloomy feeling gone,
Friendship and passion feel alone;
Who see mortality’s dull clouds
135
Before affection’s murmur fly,
Whilst the mild glances of her eye
Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds
The spirit’s inmost sanctuary.
O thou! whose virtues latest known,
140
First in this heart yet claim’st a throne;
Whose dowry sceptre still shall share
The gentle sway with virtue there;
Thou fair in form, and pure in mind,
Whose ardent friendship rivets fast
145
The flowery band our fates that bind,
Which incorruptible shall last
When duty’s lard and cold control
Has thawed around the burning soul,—
The gloomiest retrospects that bind
150
With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind,
The prospects of most doubtful hue
That rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,—
Are gilt by the reviving ray
Which thou hast flung upon my day.
FRAGMENT OF A SONNET
TO HARRIET
EVER as now with Love and Virtue’s glow
May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,
Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o’erflow
Which force from mine such quick and warm return.
TO HARRIET
IT is not blasphemy to hope that
Heaven More perfectly will give those nameless joys
Which throb within the pulses of the blood
And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth
5
Infuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou
Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path
Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold,
Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits
Which mark the bounds of Time and of the space
10
When Time shall be no more; wilt thou not turn
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me,
Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven,
And Heaven is Earth?—will not thy glowing cheek,
Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine,
15
And breathe magnetic sweetness through the frame
Of my corporeal nature, through the soul
Now knit with these fine fibres? I would give
The longest and the happiest day that fate
Has marked on my existence but to feel
20
One soul-reviving kiss … O thou most dear,
’Tis an assurance that this Earth is Heaven,
And Heaven the flower of that untainted seed
Which springeth here beneath such love as ours.
Harriet! let death all mortal ties dissolve,
25
But ours shall not be mortal! The cold hand
Of Time may chill the love of earthly minds
Half frozen now; the frigid intercourse
Of common souls lives but a summer’s day;
It dies, where it arose, upon this earth.
30
But ours! oh, ’tis the stretch of Fancy’s hope
To portray its continuance as now,
Warm, tranquil, spirit-healing; nor when age
Has tempered these wild ecstasies, and given
A soberer tinge to the luxurious glow
35
Which blazing on devotion’s pinnacle
Makes virtuous passion supersede the power
Of reason; nor when life’s aestival sun
To deeper manhood shall have ripened me;
Nor when some years have added judgement’s store
40
To all thy woman sweetness, all the fire
Which throbs in thine enthusiast heart; not then
Shall holy friendship (for what other name
May love like ours assume?), not even then
Shall Custom so corrupt, or the cold forms
45
Of this desolate world so harden us,
As when we think of the dear love that binds
Our souls in soft communion, while we know
Each other’s thoughts and feelings, can we say
Unblushingly a heartless compliment,
50
Praise, hate, or love with the unthinking world,
Or dare
That knits our love to virtue. Can those eyes,
Beaming with mildest radiance on my heart
To purify its purity, e’er bend
55
To soothe its vice or consecrate its fears?
Never, thou second Self! Is confidence
So vain in virtue that I learn to doubt
The mirror even of Truth? Dark flood of Time,
Roll as it listeth thee; I measure not
60
By month or moments thy ambiguous course.
Another may stand by me on thy brink,
And watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken,
Which pauses at my feet. The sense of love,
The thirst for action, and the impassioned thought
65
Prolong my being; if I wake no more,
My life more actual living will contain
Than some gray veteran’s of the world’s cold school,
Whose listless hours unprofitably roll
By one enthusiast feeling unredeemed,
70
Virtue and Love! unbending Fortitude,
Freedom, Devotedness and Purity!
That life my Spirit consecrates to you.
SONNET
TO A BALLOON LADEN WITH KNOWLEDGE
BRIGHT ball of flame that through the gloom of even
Silently takest thine aethereal way,
And with surpassing glory dimm’st each ray
Twinkling and the dark blue depths of Heaven,—
5
Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou
Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom,
Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow
A watch-light by the patriot’s lonely tomb;
A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor;
10
A spark, though gleaming on the hovel’s hearth,
Which through the tyrant’s gilded domes shall roar;
A beacon in the darkness of the Earth;