The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 179

NOTES: _204 exhaustless store edition 1813.

_205 Draws edition 1813. See Editor's Note.

9.

'O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!

To which those restless souls that ceaselessly Throng through the human universe, aspire; Thou consummation of all mortal hope!

Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will! _5 Whose rays, diffused throughout all s.p.a.ce and time, Verge to one point and blend for ever there: Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!

Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime, Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come: _10 O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

'Genius has seen thee in her pa.s.sionate dreams, And dim forebodings of thy loveliness Haunting the human heart, have there entwined Those rooted hopes of some sweet place of bliss _15 Where friends and lovers meet to part no more.

Thou art the end of all desire and will, The product of all action; and the souls That by the paths of an aspiring change Have reached thy haven of perpetual peace, _20 There rest from the eternity of toil That framed the fabric of thy perfectness.

'Even Time, the conqueror, fled thee in his fear; That h.o.a.ry giant, who, in lonely pride, So long had ruled the world, that nations fell _25 Beneath his silent footstep. Pyramids, That for millenniums had withstood the tide Of human things, his storm-breath drove in sand Across that desert where their stones survived The name of him whose pride had heaped them there. _30 Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp, Was but the mushroom of a summer day, That his light-winged footstep pressed to dust: Time was the king of earth: all things gave way Before him, but the fixed and virtuous will, _35 The sacred sympathies of soul and sense, That mocked his fury and prepared his fall.

'Yet slow and gradual dawned the morn of love; Long lay the clouds of darkness o'er the scene, Till from its native Heaven they rolled away: _40 First, Crime triumphant o'er all hope careered Unblus.h.i.+ng, undisguising, bold and strong; Whilst Falsehood, tricked in Virtue's attributes, Long sanctified all deeds of vice and woe, Till done by her own venomous sting to death, _45 She left the moral world without a law, No longer fettering Pa.s.sion's fearless wing,-- Nor searing Reason with the brand of G.o.d.

Then steadily the happy ferment worked; Reason was free; and wild though Pa.s.sion went _50 Through tangled glens and wood-embosomed meads, Gathering a garland of the strangest flowers, Yet like the bee returning to her queen, She bound the sweetest on her sister's brow, Who meek and sober kissed the sportive child, _55 No longer trembling at the broken rod.

'Mild was the slow necessity of death: The tranquil spirit failed beneath its grasp, Without a groan, almost without a fear, Calm as a voyager to some distant land, _60 And full of wonder, full of hope as he.

The deadly germs of languor and disease Died in the human frame, and Purity Blessed with all gifts her earthly wors.h.i.+ppers.

How vigorous then the athletic form of age! _65 How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!

Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care, Had stamped the seal of gray deformity On all the mingling lineaments of time.

How lovely the intrepid front of youth! _70 Which meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace;-- Courage of soul, that dreaded not a name, And elevated will, that journeyed on Through life's phantasmal scene in fearlessness, With virtue, love, and pleasure, hand in hand. _75

'Then, that sweet bondage which is Freedom's self, And rivets with sensation's softest tie The kindred sympathies of human souls, Needed no fetters of tyrannic law: Those delicate and timid impulses _80 In Nature's primal modesty arose, And with undoubted confidence disclosed The growing longings of its dawning love, Unchecked by dull and selfish chast.i.ty, That virtue of the cheaply virtuous, _85 Who pride themselves in senselessness and frost.

No longer prost.i.tution's venomed bane Poisoned the springs of happiness and life; Woman and man, in confidence and love, Equal and free and pure together trod _90 The mountain-paths of virtue, which no more Were stained with blood from many a pilgrim's feet.

'Then, where, through distant ages, long in pride The palace of the monarch-slave had mocked Famine's faint groan, and Penury's silent tear, _95 A heap of crumbling ruins stood, and threw Year after year their stones upon the field, Wakening a lonely echo; and the leaves Of the old thorn, that on the topmost tower Usurped the royal ensign's grandeur, shook _100 In the stern storm that swayed the topmost tower And whispered strange tales in the Whirlwind's ear.

'Low through the lone cathedral's roofless aisles The melancholy winds a death-dirge sung: It were a sight of awfulness to see _105 The works of faith and slavery, so vast, So sumptuous, yet so peris.h.i.+ng withal!

Even as the corpse that rests beneath its wall.

A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death To-day, the breathing marble glows above _110 To decorate its memory, and tongues Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms In silence and in darkness seize their prey.

'Within the ma.s.sy prison's mouldering courts, Fearless and free the ruddy children played, _115 Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows With the green ivy and the red wallflower, That mock the dungeon's unavailing gloom; The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron, There rusted amid heaps of broken stone _120 That mingled slowly with their native earth: There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean Captivity With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure smiles of infant playfulness: _125 No more the shuddering voice of hoa.r.s.e Despair Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds And merriment were resonant around.

'These ruins soon left not a wreck behind: _130 Their elements, wide scattered o'er the globe, To happier shapes were moulded, and became Ministrant to all blissful impulses: Thus human things were perfected, and earth, Even as a child beneath its mother's love, _135 Was strengthened in all excellence, and grew Fairer and n.o.bler with each pa.s.sing year.

'Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done: _140 Thy lore is learned. Earth's wonders are thine own, With all the fear and all the hope they bring.

My spells are pa.s.sed: the present now recurs.

Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains Yet unsubdued by man's reclaiming hand. _145

'Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course, Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue The gradual paths of an aspiring change: For birth and life and death, and that strange state Before the naked soul has found its home, _150 All tend to perfect happiness, and urge The restless wheels of being on their way, Whose flas.h.i.+ng spokes, instinct with infinite life, Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal: For birth but wakes the spirit to the sense _155 Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape New modes of pa.s.sion to its frame may lend; Life is its state of action, and the store Of all events is aggregated there That variegate the eternal universe; _160 Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies And happy regions of eternal hope.

Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, _165 Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet Spring's awakening breath will woo the earth, To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower, That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens, Lighting the greenwood with its sunny smile. _170

'Fear not then, Spirit, Death's disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot's h.e.l.l-torch burns; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep. _175 Death is no foe to Virtue: earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with Freedom's fadeless laurels there, And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.

Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene _180 Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?

Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still, When, to the moonlight walk by Henry led, Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death?

And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, _185 Listening supinely to a bigot's creed, Or tamely crouching to the tyrant's rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore?

Never: but bravely bearing on, thy will Is destined an eternal war to wage _190 With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot The germs of misery from the human heart.

Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The th.o.r.n.y pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, _195 Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease: Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world.

Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, _200 Free from heart-withering custom's cold control, Of pa.s.sion lofty, pure and unsubdued.

Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee, And therefore art thou worthy of the boon Which thou hast now received: Virtue shall keep _205 Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.

Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch _210 Light, life and rapture from thy smile.'

The Fairy waves her wand of charm.

Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car, That rolled beside the battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankful ness. _215 Again the enchanted steeds were yoked, Again the burning wheels inflame The steep descent of Heaven's untrodden way.

Fast and far the chariot flew: The vast and fiery globes that rolled _220 Around the Fairy's palace-gate Lessened by slow degrees and soon appeared Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs That there attendant on the solar power With borrowed light pursued their narrower way. _225

Earth floated then below: The chariot paused a moment there; The Spirit then descended: The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil, Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, _230 Unfurled their pinions to the winds of Heaven.

The Body and the Soul united then, A gentle start convulsed Ianthe's frame: Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: _235 She looked around in wonder and beheld Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright beaming stars That through the cas.e.m.e.nt shone. _240

NOTES ON QUEEN MAB.

Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTES.

1. 242, 243:--

The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave.

Beyond our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless...o...b..of fire in the midst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is owing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their reflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations propagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles repelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly exceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations on the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites have demonstrated that light takes up no more than 8 minutes 7 seconds in pa.s.sing from the sun to the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles.--Some idea may be gained of the immense distance of the fixed stars when it is computed that many years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth.

1. 252, 253:--

Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems rolled.

The plurality of worlds,--the indefinite immensity of the universe, is a most awful subject of contemplation. He who rightly feels its mystery and grandeur is in no danger of seduction from the falsehoods of religious systems, or of deifying the principle of the universe. It is impossible to believe that the Spirit that pervades this infinite machine begat a son upon the body of a Jewish woman; or is angered at the consequences of that necessity, which is a synonym of itself. All that miserable tale of the Devil, and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the childish mummeries of the G.o.d of the Jews, is irreconcilable with the knowledge of the stars. The works of His fingers have borne witness against Him.

The nearest of the fixed stars is inconceivably distant from the earth, and they are probably proportionably distant from each other. By a calculation of the velocity of light, Sirius is supposed to be at least 54,224,000,000,000 miles from the earth. (See Nicholson's "Encyclopedia", article Light.) That which appears only like a thin and silvery cloud streaking the heaven is in effect composed of innumerable cl.u.s.ters of suns, each s.h.i.+ning with its own light, and illuminating numbers of planets that revolve around them. Millions and millions of suns are ranged around us, all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity.

4. 178, 179:--

These are the hired bravos who defend The tyrant's throne.

To employ murder as a means of justice is an idea which a man of an enlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in rank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the purpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them all the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their blood; to wander over the field of desolation, and count the number of the dying and the dead,--are employments which in thesis we may maintain to be necessary, but which no good man will contemplate with gratulation and delight. A battle we suppose is won:--thus truth is established, thus the cause of justice is confirmed! It surely requires no common sagacity to discern the connexion between this immense heap of calamities and the a.s.sertion of truth or the maintenance of justice.

'Kings, and ministers of state, the real authors of the calamity, sit unmolested in their cabinet, while those against whom the fury of the storm is directed are, for the most part, persons who have been trepanned into the service, or who are dragged unwillingly from their peaceful homes into the field of battle. A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men's iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural being.

To these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to add a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its first const.i.tuent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot a.s.sume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.'--G.o.dwin's "Enquirer", Essay 5.

I will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my abhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again may be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is perhaps the only one that ever will occur of rescuing it from oblivion.

FALSEHOOD AND VICE.

A DIALOGUE.