The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 34

PANTHEA: Only a sense Remains of them, like the omnipotence Of music, when the inspired voice and lute Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, _805 Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.

PROMETHEUS: How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far, Asia! who, when my being overflowed, Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine _810 Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.

All things are still: alas! how heavily This quiet morning weighs upon my heart; Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief If slumber were denied not. I would fain _815 Be what it is my destiny to be, The saviour and the strength of suffering man, Or sink into the original gulf of things: There is no agony, and no solace left; Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. _820

PANTHEA: Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?

PROMETHEUS: I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest.

PANTHEA: Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, _825 And Asia waits in that far Indian vale, The scene of her sad exile; rugged once And desolate and frozen, like this ravine; But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow _830 Among the woods and waters, from the aether Of her transforming presence, which would fade If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!

END OF ACT 1.

ACT 2.

SCENE 2.1: MORNING.

A LOVELY VALE IN THE INDIAN CAUCASUS.

ASIA, ALONE.

ASIA: From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended: Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes Unwonted tears throng to the h.o.r.n.y eyes, And beatings haunt the desolated heart, Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended _5 Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!

O child of many winds! As suddenly Thou comest as the memory of a dream, Which now is sad because it hath been sweet; Like genius, or like joy which riseth up _10 As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds The desert of our life.

This is the season, this the day, the hour; At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, Too long desired, too long delaying, come! _15 How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!

The point of one white star is quivering still Deep in the orange light of widening morn Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm Of wind-divided mist the darker lake _20 Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again As the waves fade, and as the burning threads Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not _25 The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes Winnowing the crimson dawn?

PANTHEA [ENTERS]: I feel, I see Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.

Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest _30 The shadow of that soul by which I live, How late thou art! the sphered sun had climbed The sea; my heart was sick with hope, before The printless air felt thy belated plumes.

PANTHEA: Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint _35 With the delight of a remembered dream, As are the noontide plumes of summer winds Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm Before the sacred t.i.tan's fall, and thy _40 Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, Both love and woe familiar to my heart As they had grown to thine: erewhile I slept Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, _45 Our young Ione's soft and milky arms Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair, While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom: But not as now, since I am made the wind _50 Which fails beneath the music that I bear Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved Into the sense with which love talks, my rest Was troubled and yet sweet; my waking hours Too full of care and pain.

ASIA: Lift up thine eyes, _55 And let me read thy dream.

PANTHEA: As I have said With our sea-sister at his feet I slept.

The mountain mists, condensing at our voice Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes, From the keen ice s.h.i.+elding our linked sleep. _60 Then two dreams came. One, I remember not.

But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night Grew radiant with the glory of that form Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell _65 Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, Faint with intoxication of keen joy: 'Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world With loveliness--more fair than aught but her, Whose shadow thou art--lift thine eyes on me.' _70 I lifted them: the overpowering light Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er By love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs, And pa.s.sion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes, Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere _75 Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power, As the warm ether of the morning sun Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.

I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt His presence flow and mingle through my blood _80 Till it became his life, and his grew mine, And I was thus absorbed, until it pa.s.sed, And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, Gathering again in drops upon the pines, And tremulous as they, in the deep night _85 My being was condensed; and as the rays Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died Like footsteps of weak melody: thy name Among the many sounds alone I heard _90 Of what might be articulate; though still I listened through the night when sound was none.

Ione wakened then, and said to me: 'Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night?

I always knew, what I desired before, _95 Nor ever found delight to wish in vain.

But now I cannot tell thee what I seek; I know not; something sweet, since it is sweet Even to desire; it is thy sport, false sister; Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, _100 Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept And mingled it with thine: for when just now We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, _105 Quivered between our intertwining arms.'

I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale, But fled to thee.

ASIA: Thou speakest, but thy words Are as the air: I feel them not: Oh, lift Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul! _110

PANTHEA: I lift them though they droop beneath the load Of that they would express: what canst thou see But thine own fairest shadow imaged there?

ASIA: Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven Contracted to two circles underneath _115 Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless, Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.

PANTHEA: Why lookest thou as if a spirit pa.s.sed?

ASIA: There is a change: beyond their inmost depth I see a shade, a shape: 'tis He, arrayed _120 In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon.

Prometheus, it is thine! depart not yet!

Say not those smiles that we shall meet again Within that bright pavilion which their beams _125 Shall build o'er the waste world? The dream is told.

What shape is that between us? Its rude hair Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air, For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew _130 Whose stars the noon has quenched not.

NOTE: _122 moon B; morn 1820.

_126 o'er B; on 1820.

DREAM Follow! Follow!

PANTHEA: It is mine other dream.

ASIA: It disappears.

PANTHEA: It pa.s.ses now into my mind. Methought As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond tree, _135 When swift from the white Scythian wilderness A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost: I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down; But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, _140 O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!

ASIA: As you speak, your words Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep With shapes. Methought among these lawns together We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, And mult.i.tudes of dense white fleecy clouds _145 Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind; And the white dew on the new-bladed gra.s.s, Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently; And there was more which I remember not: _150 But on the shadows of the morning clouds, Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written FOLLOW, O, FOLLOW! as they vanished by; And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had fallen, The like was stamped, as with a withering fire; _155 A wind arose among the pines; it shook The clinging music from their boughs, and then Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts, Were heard: O, FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ME!

And then I said, 'Panthea, look on me.' _160 But in the depth of those beloved eyes Still I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW!

NOTE: _143 these B; the 1820.

ECHO: Follow, follow!

PANTHEA: The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices As they were spirit-tongued.

ASIA: It is some being Around the crags. What fine clear sounds! O, list! _165

ECHOES, UNSEEN: Echoes we: listen!

We cannot stay: As dew-stars glisten Then fade away-- Child of Ocean! _170

ASIA: Hark! Spirits speak. The liquid responses Of their aereal tongues yet sound.

PANTHEA: I hear.

ECHOES: Oh, follow, follow, As our voice recedeth Through the caverns hollow, _175 Where the forest spreadeth; [MORE DISTANT.]

Oh, follow, follow!

Through the caverns hollow, As the song floats thou pursue, Where the wild bee never flew, _180 Through the noontide darkness deep, By the odour-breathing sleep Of faint night-flowers, and the waves At the fountain-lighted caves, While our music, wild and sweet, _185 Mocks thy gently falling feet, Child of Ocean!

ASIA: Shall we pursue the sound? It grows more faint And distant.

PANTHEA: List! the strain floats nearer now.

ECHOES: In the world unknown _190 Sleeps a voice unspoken; By thy step alone Can its rest be broken; Child of Ocean!

ASIA: How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind! _195

ECHOES: Oh, follow, follow!

Through the caverns hollow, As the song floats thou pursue, By the woodland noontide dew; By the forests, lakes, and fountains, _200 Through the many-folded mountains; To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms, Where the Earth reposed from spasms, On the day when He and thou Parted, to commingle now; _205 Child of Ocean!

ASIA: Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, And follow, ere the voices fade away.