The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
XXVIII
265
This lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain—as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
270
Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep
The tenour of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.
XXIX
And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
275
She passed at dewfall to a space extended,
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire—full even to the brim,
280
And overflowing all the margin trim.
XXX
Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star
O’er woods and lawns;—the serpent heard it flicker
285
In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar—
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.
XXXI
She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought
290
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought
And gave it to this daughter: from a car
295
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.
XXXII
And others say, that, when but three hours old,
The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
300
And like a horticultural adept,
Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,
And sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
And with his wings fanning it as it grew.
XXXIII
305
The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began
To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance; woven tracery ran
Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er
310
The solid rind, like a leaf’s veinèd fan—
Of which Love scooped this boat—and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
XXXIV
This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
315
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.
Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,
One of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit—
Or as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame—
Or on blind Homer’s heart a wingèd thought,—
320
In joyous expectation lay the boat.
XXXV
Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love—all things together grow
Through which the harmony of love can pass;
325
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow—
A living Image, which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
XXXVI
A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
330
It seemed to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,—
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
The countenance was such as might select
335
Some artist that his skill should never die,
Imaging forth such perfect purity.
XXXVII
From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
340
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:
She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said: ‘Sit here!’
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.
XXXVIII
And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,
Around their inland islets, and amid
The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast
Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;
350
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.
XXXIX
The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
355
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,
When Earth over her face Night’s mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
360
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.
XL
And ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
And o’er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
365
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.
XLI
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
370
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent
375
With sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat
In such a shallow rapid could not float.
XLII
And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever
380
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
A subterranean portal for the river,
It fled—the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.
XLIII
385
And when the wizard lady would ascend
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—
She called ‘Hermaphroditus!’—and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
390
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale
A ra
pid shadow from a slope of grass,
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
XLIV
And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
395
And from above into the Sun’s dominions
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-wingèd minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
400
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.
XLV
And then it winnowed the Elysian air
Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vans—and speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,
405
Or a swift eagle in the morning glare
Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,
The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
XLVI
The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow
410
Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven
The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
415
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
The swift and steady motion of the keel.
XLVII
Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain
420
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;
She to the Austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,—
XLVIII
425
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake—
There she would build herself a windless haven
430
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:
XLIX
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
435
And around which the solid vapours hoar,
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
440
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.
L
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
445
Of the housed cormorant in the lightning flash
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke—this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,—
LI
On which that lady played her many pranks,
450
Circling the image of a shooting star,
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
455
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.
LII
And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits—
460
In mighty legions, million after million,
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
LIII
465
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk—cressets from the serene
470
Hung there, and on the water for her tread
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.
LIV
And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,
475
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
She sate, and heard all that had happened new
Between the earth and moon, since they had brought
The last intelligence—and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night—
480
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.
LV
These were tame pleasures; she would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beakèd cape of cloud sublime,
And like Arion on the dolphin’s back
485
Ride singing through the shoreless air;—oft-time
Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.
LVI
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
490
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
She would ascend, and win the spirits there
To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
495
Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed,
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
LVII
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
500
Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,
Like a calm flock of silver-fleecèd sheep,
His waters on the plain: and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
LVIII
505
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
510
Of those huge forms—within the brazen doors
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
LIX
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
515
And never are erased—but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight
&n
bsp; 520
To wander in the shadow of the night.
LX
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
525
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
LXI
A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
530
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.
Here lay two sister twins in infancy;
There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
Within, two lovers linkèd innocently
In their loose locks which over both did creep
535
Like ivy from one stem;—and there lay calm
Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
LXII
But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
Not to be mirrored in a holy song—
Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
540
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;
And all the code of Custom’s lawless law
Written upon the brows of old and young:
‘This,’ said the wizard maiden, ‘is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.’
LXIII
545
And little did the sight disturb her soul,—
We, the weak mariners of that wide lake
Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,
Our course unpiloted and starless make
O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal:—
550
The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand
She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.
XXVIII
265
This lady never slept, but lay in trance
All night within the fountain—as in sleep.
Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty’s glance;
Through the green splendour of the water deep
She saw the constellations reel and dance
270
Like fire-flies—and withal did ever keep
The tenour of her contemplations calm,
With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.
XXIX
And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended
From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,
275
She passed at dewfall to a space extended,
Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel
Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,
There yawned an inextinguishable well
Of crimson fire—full even to the brim,
280
And overflowing all the margin trim.
XXX
Within the which she lay when the fierce war
Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor
In many a mimic moon and bearded star
O’er woods and lawns;—the serpent heard it flicker
285
In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar—
And when the windless snow descended thicker
Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came
Melt on the surface of the level flame.
XXXI
She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought
290
For Venus, as the chariot of her star;
But it was found too feeble to be fraught
With all the ardours in that sphere which are,
And so she sold it, and Apollo bought
And gave it to this daughter: from a car
295
Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat
Which ever upon mortal stream did float.
XXXII
And others say, that, when but three hours old,
The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,
And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,
300
And like a horticultural adept,
Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,
And sowed it in his mother’s star, and kept
Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,
And with his wings fanning it as it grew.
XXXIII
305
The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower
Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began
To turn the light and dew by inward power
To its own substance; woven tracery ran
Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o’er
310
The solid rind, like a leaf’s veinèd fan—
Of which Love scooped this boat—and with soft motion
Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.
XXXIV
This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit
A living spirit within all its frame,
315
Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.
Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,
One of the twain at Evan’s feet that sit—
Or as on Vesta’s sceptre a swift flame—
Or on blind Homer’s heart a wingèd thought,—
320
In joyous expectation lay the boat.
XXXV
Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow
Together, tempering the repugnant mass
With liquid love—all things together grow
Through which the harmony of love can pass;
325
And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow—
A living Image, which did far surpass
In beauty that bright shape of vital stone
Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.
XXXVI
A sexless thing it was, and in its growth
330
It seemed to have developed no defect
Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,—
In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked
The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,
The countenance was such as might select
335
Some artist that his skill should never die,
Imaging forth such perfect purity.
XXXVII
From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,
Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,
Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,
340
Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:
She led her creature to the boiling springs
Where the light boat was moored, and said: ‘Sit here!’
And pointed to the prow, and took her seat
Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.
XXXVIII
And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,
Around their inland islets, and amid
The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast
Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;
350
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.
XXXIX
The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,
355
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,
When Earth over her face Night’s mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay on high,
360
Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.
XL
And ever as she went, the Image lay
With folded wings and unawakened eyes;
And o’er its gentle countenance did play
The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,
365
Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,
And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs
Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,
They had aroused from that full heart and brain.
XLI
And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud
370
Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:
Now lingering on the pools, in which abode
The calm and darkness of the deep content
In which they paused; now o’er the shallow road
Of white and dancing waters, all besprent
375
With sand and polished pebbles:—mortal boat
In such a shallow rapid could not float.
XLII
And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver
Their snow-like waters into golden air,
Or under chasms unfathomable ever
380
Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear
A subterranean portal for the river,
It fled—the circling sunbows did upbear
Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,
Lighting it far upon its lampless way.
XLIII
385
And when the wizard lady would ascend
The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,
Which to the inmost mountain upward tend—
She called ‘Hermaphroditus!’—and the pale
And heavy hue which slumber could extend
390
Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale
A ra
Into the darkness of the stream did pass.
XLIV
And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,
With stars of fire spotting the stream below;
395
And from above into the Sun’s dominions
Flinging a glory, like the golden glow
In which Spring clothes her emerald-wingèd minions,
All interwoven with fine feathery snow
And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,
400
With which frost paints the pines in winter time.
XLV
And then it winnowed the Elysian air
Which ever hung about that lady bright,
With its aethereal vans—and speeding there,
Like a star up the torrent of the night,
405
Or a swift eagle in the morning glare
Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,
The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,
Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.
XLVI
The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow
410
Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;
The still air seemed as if its waves did flow
In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven
The lady’s radiant hair streamed to and fro:
Beneath, the billows having vainly striven
415
Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel
The swift and steady motion of the keel.
XLVII
Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,
Or in the noon of interlunar night,
The lady-witch in visions could not chain
420
Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light
Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain
Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;
She to the Austral waters took her way,
Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,—
XLVIII
425
Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,
Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,
With the Antarctic constellations paven,
Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake—
There she would build herself a windless haven
430
Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make
The bastions of the storm, when through the sky
The spirits of the tempest thundered by:
XLIX
A haven beneath whose translucent floor
The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,
435
And around which the solid vapours hoar,
Based on the level waters, to the sky
Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore
Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly
Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,
440
And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.
L
And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash
Of the wind’s scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,
And the incessant hail with stony clash
Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing
445
Of the housed cormorant in the lightning flash
Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering
Fragment of inky thunder-smoke—this haven
Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,—
LI
On which that lady played her many pranks,
450
Circling the image of a shooting star,
Even as a tiger on Hydaspes’ banks
Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,
In her light boat; and many quips and cranks
She played upon the water, till the car
455
Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan,
To journey from the misty east began.
LII
And then she called out of the hollow turrets
Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,
The armies of her ministering spirits—
460
In mighty legions, million after million,
They came, each troop emblazoning its merits
On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion
Of the intertexture of the atmosphere
They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.
LIII
465
They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen
Of woven exhalations, underlaid
With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen
A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid
With crimson silk—cressets from the serene
470
Hung there, and on the water for her tread
A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,
Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.
LIV
And on a throne o’erlaid with starlight, caught
Upon those wandering isles of aëry dew,
475
Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,
She sate, and heard all that had happened new
Between the earth and moon, since they had brought
The last intelligence—and now she grew
Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night—
480
And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.
LV
These were tame pleasures; she would often climb
The steepest ladder of the crudded rack
Up to some beakèd cape of cloud sublime,
And like Arion on the dolphin’s back
485
Ride singing through the shoreless air;—oft-time
Following the serpent lightning’s winding track,
She ran upon the platforms of the wind,
And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.
LVI
And sometimes to those streams of upper air
490
Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round,
She would ascend, and win the spirits there
To let her join their chorus. Mortals found
That on those days the sky was calm and fair,
And mystic snatches of harmonious sound
495
Wandered upon the earth where’er she passed,
And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.
LVII
But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,
To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads
Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep
500
Of utmost Axumè, until he spreads,
Like a calm flock of silver-fleecèd sheep,
His waters on the plain: and crested heads
Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,
And many a vapour-belted pyramid.
LVIII
505
By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,
Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,
Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,
Or charioteering ghastly alligators,
Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes
510
Of those huge forms—within the brazen doors
Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,
Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.
LIX
And where within the surface of the river
The shadows of the massy temples lie,
515
And never are erased—but tremble ever
Like things which every cloud can doom to die,
Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever
The works of man pierced that serenest sky
With tombs, and towers, and fanes, ’twas her delight
&n
To wander in the shadow of the night.
LX
With motion like the spirit of that wind
Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet
Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind,
Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,
525
Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined
With many a dark and subterranean street
Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep
She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.
LXI
A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see
530
Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.
Here lay two sister twins in infancy;
There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;
Within, two lovers linkèd innocently
In their loose locks which over both did creep
535
Like ivy from one stem;—and there lay calm
Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.
LXII
But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,
Not to be mirrored in a holy song—
Distortions foul of supernatural awe,
540
And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;
And all the code of Custom’s lawless law
Written upon the brows of old and young:
‘This,’ said the wizard maiden, ‘is the strife
Which stirs the liquid surface of man’s life.’
LXIII
545
And little did the sight disturb her soul,—
We, the weak mariners of that wide lake
Where’er its shores extend or billows roll,
Our course unpiloted and starless make
O’er its wild surface to an unknown goal:—
550