The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 194

O'er him the fierce bolts of avenging Heaven Pause, as in fear, to strike his head. _40 The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure, Yet the 'wildered peasant, that oft pa.s.ses by, With wonder beholds the blue flash through his form: And his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead, The startled pa.s.senger shudders to hear, _45 More distinct than the thunder's wildest roar.

Then does the dragon, who, chained in the caverns To eternity, curses the champion of Erin, Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight, And twine his vast wreaths round the forms of the daemons; _50 Then in agony roll his death-swimming eyeb.a.l.l.s, Though 'wildered by death, yet never to die!

Then he shakes from his skeleton folds the nightmares, Who, shrieking in agony, seek the couch Of some fevered wretch who courts sleep in vain; _55 Then the tombless ghosts of the guilty dead In horror pause on the fitful gale.

They float on the swell of the eddying tempest, And scared seek the caves of gigantic...

Where their thin forms pour unearthly sounds _60 On the blast that sweets the breast of the lake, And mingles its swell with the moonlight air.

MELODY TO A SCENE OF FORMER TIMES.

Art thou indeed forever gone, Forever, ever, lost to me?

Must this poor bosom beat alone, Or beat at all, if not for thee?

Ah! why was love to mortals given, _5 To lift them to the height of Heaven, Or dash them to the depths of h.e.l.l?

Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!

Ah, no! the agonies that swell This panting breast, this frenzied brain, _10 Might wake my --'s slumb'ring tear.

Oh! Heaven is witness I did love, And Heaven does know I love thee still, Does know the fruitless sick'ning thrill, When reason's judgement vainly strove _15 To blot thee from my memory; But which might never, never be.

Oh! I appeal to that blest day When pa.s.sion's wildest ecstasy Was coldness to the joys I knew, _20 When every sorrow sunk away.

Oh! I had never lived before, But now those blisses are no more.

And now I cease to live again, I do not blame thee, love; ah, no! _25 The breast that feels this anguished woe.

Throbs for thy happiness alone.

Two years of speechless bliss are gone, I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.

'Tis night--what faint and distant scream _30 Comes on the wild and fitful blast?

It moans for pleasures that are past, It moans for days that are gone by.

Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!

I see a dark and lengthened vale, _35 The black view closes with the tomb; But darker is the lowering gloom That shades the intervening dale.

In visioned slumber for awhile I seem again to share thy smile, _40 I seem to hang upon thy tone.

Again you say, 'Confide in me, For I am thine, and thine alone, And thine must ever, ever be.'

But oh! awak'ning still anew, _45 Athwart my enanguished senses flew A fiercer, deadlier agony!

[End of "Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson".]

STANZA FROM A TRANSLATION OF THE Ma.r.s.eILLAISE HYMN.

[Published by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1876; dated 1810.]

Tremble, Kings despised of man!

Ye traitors to your Country, Tremble! Your parricidal plan At length shall meet its destiny...

We all are soldiers fit to fight, _5 But if we sink in glory's night Our mother Earth will give ye new The brilliant pathway to pursue Which leads to Death or Victory...

BIGOTRY'S VICTIM.

[Published (without t.i.tle) by Hogg, "Life of Sh.e.l.ley", 1858; dated 1809-10. The t.i.tle is Rossetti's (1870).]

1.

Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind, The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?

When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind Repose trust in his footsteps of air?

No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, _5 The monster transfixes his prey, On the sand flows his life-blood away; Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply, Protracting the horrible harmony.

2.

Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, _10 Dares fearless to perish defending her brood, Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches Thirsting--ay, thirsting for blood; And demands, like mankind, his brother for food; Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; _15 For hunger, not glory, the prey Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.

Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer's head.

3.

Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains, And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, _20 Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains, Though a fiercer than tiger is there.

Though, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair, Though its shadow eclipses the day, And the darkness of deepest dismay _25 Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around, And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.

4.

They came to the fountain to draw from its stream Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see; They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam, _30 Then perished, and perished like me.

For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee; The most tenderly loved of my soul Are slaves to his hated control.

He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly: _35 - What remains, but to curse him,--to curse him and die?

ON AN ICICLE THAT CLUNG TO THE GRa.s.s OF A GRAVE.

[Published (without t.i.tle) by Hogg, "Life of Sh.e.l.ley", 1858; dated 1809-10. The poem, with t.i.tle as above, is included in the Esdaile ma.n.u.script book.]

1.

Oh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes, Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair, In which the warm current of love never freezes, As it rises unmingled with selfishness there, Which, untainted by pride, unpolluted by care, _5 Might dissolve the dim icedrop, might bid it arise, Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies.

2.

Or where the stern warrior, his country defending, Dares fearless the dark-rolling battle to pour, Or o'er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending, _10 Where patriotism red with his guilt-reeking gore Plants Liberty's flag on the slave-peopled sh.o.r.e, With victory's cry, with the shout of the free, Let it fly, taintless Spirit, to mingle with thee.

3.

For I found the pure gem, when the daybeam returning, _15 Ineffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain, When to others the wished-for arrival of morning Brings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain; But regret is an insult--to grieve is in vain: And why should we grieve that a spirit so fair _20 Seeks Heaven to mix with its own kindred there?

4.

But still 'twas some Spirit of kindness descending To share in the load of mortality's woe, Who over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending Bade sympathy's tenderest teardrop to flow. _25 Not for THEE soft compa.s.sion celestials did know, But if ANGELS can weep, sure MAN may repine, May weep in mute grief o'er thy low-laid shrine.

5.

And did I then say, for the altar of glory, That the earliest, the loveliest of flowers I'd entwine, _30 Though with millions of blood-reeking victims 'twas gory, Though the tears of the widow polluted its shrine, Though around it the orphans, the fatherless pine?

Oh! Fame, all thy glories I'd yield for a tear To shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. _35

LOVE.

[Published (without t.i.tle) by Hogg, "Life of Sh.e.l.ley", 1858; dated 1811.

The t.i.tle is Rossetti's (1870).]

Why is it said thou canst not live In a youthful breast and fair, Since thou eternal life canst give, Canst bloom for ever there?