The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 68

Or how I, wisest lady! then endued _175 The language of a land which now is free, And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty, Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud, And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 'My name is Legion!'--that majestic tongue _180 Which Calderon over the desert flung Of ages and of nations; and which found An echo in our hearts, and with the sound Startled oblivion;--thou wert then to me As is a nurse--when inarticulately _185 A child would talk as its grown parents do.

If living winds the rapid clouds pursue, If hawks chase doves through the aethereal way, Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey, Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast _190 Out of the forest of the pathless past These recollected pleasures?

You are now In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow At once is deaf and loud, and on the sh.o.r.e Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. _195 Yet in its depth what treasures! You will see That which was G.o.dwin,--greater none than he Though fallen--and fallen on evil times--to stand Among the spirits of our age and land, Before the dread tribunal of "to come" _200 The foremost,--while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.

You will see Coleridge--he who sits obscure In the exceeding l.u.s.tre and the pure Intense irradiation of a mind, Which, with its own internal lightning blind, _200 Flags wearily through darkness and despair-- A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, A hooded eagle among blinking owls.-- You will see Hunt--one of those happy souls Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom _210 This world would smell like what it is--a tomb; Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout, With graceful flowers tastefully placed about; And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, _215 And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung; The gifts of the most learned among some dozens Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.

And there is he with his eternal puns, Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns _220 Thundering for money at a poet's door; Alas! it is no use to say, 'I'm poor!'

Or oft in graver mood, when he will look Things wiser than were ever read in book, Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness.-- _225 You will see Hogg,--and I cannot express His virtues,--though I know that they are great, Because he locks, then barricades the gate Within which they inhabit;--of his wit And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. _230 He is a pearl within an oyster sh.e.l.l.

One of the richest of the deep;--and there Is English Peac.o.c.k, with his mountain Fair, Turned into a Flamingo;--that shy bird That gleams i' the Indian air--have you not heard _235 When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, His best friends hear no more of him?--but you Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope Matched with this cameleopard--his fine wit _240 Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it; A strain too learned for a shallow age, Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page, Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, Fold itself up for the serener clime _245 Of years to come, and find its recompense In that just expectation.--Wit and sense, Virtue and human knowledge; all that might Make this dull world a business of delight, Are all combined in Horace Smith.--And these. _250 With some exceptions, which I need not tease Your patience by descanting on,--are all You and I know in London.

I recall My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.

As water does a sponge, so the moonlight _255 Fills the void, hollow, universal air-- What see you?--unpavilioned Heaven is fair, Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; _260 Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:-- All this is beautiful in every land.-- But what see you beside?--a shabby stand _265 Of Hackney coaches--a brick house or wall Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl Of our unhappy politics;--or worse-- A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, _270 You must accept in place of serenade-- Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring To Henry, some unutterable thing.

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit Built round dark caverns, even to the root _275 Of the living stems that feed them--in whose bowers There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers; Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, _280 Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance, Pale in the open moons.h.i.+ne, but each one Under the dark trees seems a little sun, A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray From the silver regions of the milky way;-- _285 Afar the Contadino's song is heard, Rude, but made sweet by distance--and a bird Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet I know none else that sings so sweet as it At this late hour;--and then all is still-- _290 Now--Italy or London, which you will!

Next winter you must pa.s.s with me; I'll have My house by that time turned into a grave Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care, And all the dreams which our tormentors are; _295 Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peac.o.c.k, and Smith were there, With everything belonging to them fair!-- We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek; And ask one week to make another week As like his father, as I'm unlike mine, _300 Which is not his fault, as you may divine.

Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast; Custards for supper, and an endless host Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, _305 And other such lady-like luxuries,-- Feasting on which we will philosophize!

And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.

And then we'll talk;--what shall we talk about? _310 Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout Of thought-entangled descant;--as to nerves-- With cones and parallelograms and curves I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare To bother me--when you are with me there. _315 And they shall never more sip laudanum, From Helicon or Himeros (1);--well, come, And in despite of G.o.d and of the devil, We'll make our friendly philosophic revel Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers _320 Warn the obscure inevitable hours, Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;-- 'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'

NOTES: _13 must Bos. ma.n.u.script; most edition 1824.

_27 philanthropic Bos. ma.n.u.script; philosophic edition 1824.

_29 so 1839, 2nd edition; They owed... edition 1824.

_36 Which fishers Bos. ma.n.u.script; Which fishes edition 1824; With fishes editions 1839.

_38 rarely transcript; seldom editions 1824, 1839.

_61 lava--cry]lava-cry editions 1824, 1839.

_63 towers transcript; towns editions 1824, 1839.

_84 queer Bos. ma.n.u.script; green transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_92 odd hooks transcript; old books editions 1839 (an evident misprint); old hooks edition 1824.

_93 A]An edition 1824.

_100 those transcript; them editions 1824, 1839.

_101 lead Bos. ma.n.u.script; least transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_127 eye Bos. ma.n.u.script, transcript, editions 1839; age edition 1824.

_140 knew Bos. ma.n.u.script; know transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_144 citing Bos. ma.n.u.script; acting transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_151 Feasts transcript; Treats editions 1824, 1839.

_153 As well it]As it well editions 1824, 1839.

_158 believe, and]believe; or editions 1824, 1839.

_173 their transcript; the editions 1824, 1839.

_188 aethereal transcript; aereal editions 1824, 1839.

_197-201 See notes Volume 3.

_202 Coleridge]C-- edition 1824. So too H--t l. 209; H-- l. 226; P-- l. 233; H.S. l. 250; H-- -- and -- l. 296.

_205 lightning Bos. ma.n.u.script, transcript; l.u.s.tre editions 1824, 1839.

_224 read Bos. ma.n.u.script; said transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_244 time Bos. ma.n.u.script, transcript; age editions 1824, 1839.

_245 the transcript: a editions 1824, 1839.

_272, _273 found in the 2nd edition of P. W., 1839; wanting in transcript, edition 1824 and 1839, 1st. edition.

_276 that transcript; who editions 1824, 1839.

_288 the transcript; a editions 1824, 1839.

_296 See notes Volume 3.

_299, _300 So 1839, 2nd edition; wanting in editions 1824, 1839, 1st.

_301 So transcript; wanting in editions 1824, 1839.

_317 well, come 1839, 2nd edition; we'll come editions 1824, 1839. 1st.

_318 despite of G.o.d] transcript; despite of... edition 1824; spite of... editions 1839.

(_317 Imeros, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

[Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, edition Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, 1824. The dedication To Mas-y first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st edition Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1824; (2) editions 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow edition 1824); (3) an early and incomplete ma.n.u.script in Sh.e.l.ley's handwriting (now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully collated by Mr. C.D. Loc.o.c.k, who printed the results in his Examination of the Sh.e.l.ley ma.n.u.scripts, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, the variations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. The original text is modified in many places by variants from the ma.n.u.scripts, but the readings of edition 1824 are, in every instance, given in the footnotes.]

TO MARY (ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST).

1.

How, my dear Mary,--are you critic-bitten (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review, That you condemn these verses I have written, Because they tell no story, false or true?

What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, _5 May it not leap and play as grown cats do, Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time, Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

2.

What hand would crush the silken-winged fly, The youngest of inconstant April's minions, _10 Because it cannot climb the purest sky, Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?

Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die, When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile, _15 Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

3.

To thy fair feet a winged Vision came, Whose date should have been longer than a day, And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame, And in thy sight its fading plumes display; _20 The watery bow burned in the evening flame.

But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way-- And that is dead.--O, let me not believe That anything of mine is fit to live!

4.

Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years _25 Considering and retouching Peter Bell; Watering his laurels with the killing tears Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to h.e.l.l Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well _30 May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil The over-busy gardener's blundering toil.

5.

My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise Clothes for our grandsons--but she matches Peter, _35 Though he took nineteen years, and she three days In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays, Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress Like King Lear's 'looped and windowed raggedness.' _40

6.

If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow Scorched by h.e.l.l's hyperequatorial climate Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow: A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at; In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Oth.e.l.lo. _45 If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate Can shrive you of that sin,--if sin there be In love, when it becomes idolatry.

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

1.

Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, _50 Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth All those bright natures which adorned its prime, And left us nothing to believe in, worth The pains of putting into learned rhyme, A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain _55 Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.

2.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides: The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden _60 In the warm shadow of her loveliness;-- He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden The chamber of gray rock in which she lay-- She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

3.

'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour, _65 And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit, Like splendour-winged moths about a taper, Round the red west when the sun dies in it: And then into a meteor, such as caper On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit: _70 Then, into one of those mysterious stars Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

4.

Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden With that bright sign the billows to indent _75 The sea-deserted sand--like children chidden, At her command they ever came and went-- Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden Took shape and motion: with the living form Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. _80

5.