The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 39

They shake with emotion, _45 They dance in their mirth.

But where are ye?

The pine boughs are singing Old songs with new gladness, The billows and fountains _50 Fresh music are flinging, Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea; The storms mock the mountains With the thunder of gladness.

But where are ye? _55

IONE: What charioteers are these?

PANTHEA: Where are their chariots?

SEMICHORUS OF HOURS: The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep Which covered our being and darkened our birth In the deep.

A VOICE: In the deep?

SEMICHORUS 2: Oh, below the deep. _60

SEMICHORUS 1: An hundred ages we had been kept Cradled in visions of hate and care, And each one who waked as his brother slept, Found the truth--

SEMICHORUS 2: Worse than his visions were!

SEMICHORUS 1: We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; _65 We have known the voice of Love in dreams; We have felt the wand of Power, and leap--

SEMICHORUS 2: As the billows leap in the morning beams!

CHORUS: Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, Pierce with song heaven's silent light, _70 Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, To check its flight ere the cave of Night.

Once the hungry Hours were hounds Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, And it limped and stumbled with many wounds _75 Through the nightly dells of the desert year.

But now, oh weave the mystic measure Of music, and dance, and shapes of light, Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure, Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite--

A VOICE: Unite! _80

PANTHEA: See, where the Spirits of the human mind Wrapped in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: We join the throng Of the dance and the song, By the whirlwind of gladness borne along; _85 As the flying-fish leap From the Indian deep, And mix with the sea-birds, half-asleep.

CHORUS OF HOURS: Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet, For sandals of lightning are on your feet, _90 And your wings are soft and swift as thought, And your eyes are as love which is veiled not?

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: We come from the mind Of human kind Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind, _95 Now 'tis an ocean Of clear emotion, A heaven of serene and mighty motion.

From that deep abyss Of wonder and bliss, _100 Whose caverns are crystal palaces; From those skiey towers Where Thought's crowned powers Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours!

From the dim recesses _105 Of woven caresses, Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses; From the azure isles, Where sweet Wisdom smiles, Delaying your s.h.i.+ps with her siren wiles. _110

From the temples high Of Man's ear and eye, Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy; From the murmurings Of the unsealed springs _115 Where Science bedews her Daedal wings.

Years after years, Through blood, and tears, And a thick h.e.l.l of hatreds, and hopes, and fears; We waded and flew, _120 And the islets were few Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.

Our feet now, every palm, Are sandalled with calm, And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm; _125 And, beyond our eyes, The human love lies Which makes all it gazes on Paradise.

NOTE: _116 her B; his 1820.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS AND HOURS: Then weave the web of the mystic measure; From the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth, _130 Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure, Fill the dance and the music of mirth, As the waves of a thousand streams rush by To an ocean of splendour and harmony!

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: Our spoil is won, _135 Our task is done, We are free to dive, or soar, or run; Beyond and around, Or within the bound Which clips the world with darkness round. _140

We'll pa.s.s the eyes Of the starry skies Into the h.o.a.r deep to colonize; Death, Chaos, and Night, From the sound of our flight, _145 Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might.

And Earth, Air, and Light, And the Spirit of Might, Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight; And Love, Thought, and Breath, _150 The powers that quell Death, Wherever we soar shall a.s.semble beneath.

And our singing shall build In the void's loose field A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield; _155 We will take our plan From the new world of man, And our work shall be called the Promethean.

CHORUS OF HOURS: Break the dance, and scatter the song; Let some depart, and some remain; _160

SEMICHORUS 1: We, beyond heaven, are driven along:

SEMICHORUS 2: Us the enchantments of earth retain:

SEMICHORUS 1: Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free, With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea, And a heaven where yet heaven could never be; _165

SEMICHORUS 2: Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night, With the powers of a world of perfect light;

SEMICHORUS 1: We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere, Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear _170 From its chaos made calm by love, not fear.

SEMICHORUS 2: We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth, And the happy forms of its death and birth Change to the music of our sweet mirth.

CHORUS OF HOURS AND SPIRITS: Break the dance, and scatter the song; _175 Let some depart, and some remain, Wherever we fly we lead along In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong, The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain.

PANTHEA: Ha! they are gone!

IONE: Yet feel you no delight _180 From the past sweetness?

PANTHEA: As the bare green hill When some soft cloud vanishes into rain, Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water To the unpavilioned sky!

IONE: Even whilst we speak New notes arise. What is that awful sound? _185

PANTHEA: 'Tis the deep music of the rolling world Kindling within the strings of the waved air Aeolian modulations.

IONE: Listen too, How every pause is filled with under-notes, Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, _190 Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air And gaze upon themselves within the sea.

PANTHEA: But see where through two openings in the forest Which hanging branches overcanopy, _195 And where two runnels of a rivulet, Between the close moss violet-inwoven, Have made their path of melody, like sisters Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles, Turning their dear disunion to an isle _200 Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts; Two visions of strange radiance float upon The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet Under the ground and through the windless air. _205

IONE: I see a chariot like that thinnest boat, In which the Mother of the Months is borne By ebbing light into her western cave, When she upsprings from interlunar dreams; O'er which is curved an orblike canopy _210 Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods, Distinctly seen through that dusk aery veil, Regard like shapes in an enchanter's gla.s.s; Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, Such as the genii of the thunderstorm _215 Pile on the floor of the illumined sea When the sun rushes under it; they roll And move and grow as with an inward wind; Within it sits a winged infant, white Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, _220 Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl.

Its hair is white, the brightness of white light Scattered in strings; yet its two eyes are heavens _225 Of liquid darkness, which the Deity Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, Tempering the cold and radiant air around, With fire that is not brightness; in its hand _230 It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point A guiding power directs the chariot's prow Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll Over the gra.s.s, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. _235

NOTES: _208 light B; night 1820.

_212 aery B; airy 1820.

_225 strings B, edition 1839; string 1820.

PANTHEA: And from the other opening in the wood Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, Solid as crystal, yet through all its ma.s.s Flow, as through empty s.p.a.ce, music and light: _240 Ten thousand orbs involving and involved, Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden, Sphere within sphere; and every s.p.a.ce between Peopled with unimaginable shapes, Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, _245 Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl Over each other with a thousand motions, Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, And with the force of self-destroying swiftness, Intensely, slowly, solemnly, roll on, _250 Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, Intelligible words and music wild.