The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 83

In tempest of the omnipotence of G.o.d Which sweeps through all things.

From hollow leagues, from Tyranny which arms _105 Adverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies To stamp, as on a winged serpent's seed, Upon the name of Freedom; from the storm Of faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickens The solid heart of enterprise; from all _110 By which the holiest dreams of highest spirits Are stars beneath the dawn...

She shall arise Victorious as the world arose from Chaos!

And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed Their presence in the beauty and the light _115 Of Thy first smile, O Father,--as they gather The spirit of Thy love which paves for them Their path o'er the abyss, till every sphere Shall be one living Spirit,--so shall Greece--

SATAN: Be as all things beneath the empyrean, _120 Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny, Thou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns?

Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed Which pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn; For seest thou not beneath this crystal floor _125 The innumerable worlds of golden light Which are my empire, and the least of them which thou wouldst redeem from me?

Know'st thou not them my portion?

Or wouldst rekindle the ... strife _130 Which our great Father then did arbitrate Which he a.s.signed to his competing sons Each his apportioned realm?

Thou Destiny, Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence Of Him who tends thee forth, whate'er thy task, _135 Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be mine Thy trophies, whether Greece again become The fountain in the desert whence the earth Shall drink of freedom, which shall give it strength To suffer, or a gulf of hollow death _140 To swallow all delight, all life, all hope.

Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no less Than of the Father's; but lest thou shouldst faint, The winged hounds, Famine and Pestilence, Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forked snake _145 Insatiate Superst.i.tion still shall...

The earth behind thy steps, and War shall hover Above, and Fraud shall gape below, and Change Shall flit before thee on her dragon wings, Convulsing and consuming, and I add _150 Three vials of the tears which daemons weep When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death Pa.s.s triumphing over the thorns of life, Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares, Trampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates. _155 The first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure, Glory and science and security, On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree, Then pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes.

The second Tyranny--

CHRIST: Obdurate spirit! _160 Thou seest but the Past in the To-come.

Pride is thy error and thy punishment.

Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds Are more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops Before the Power that wields and kindles them. _165 True greatness asks not s.p.a.ce, true excellence Lives in the Spirit of all things that live, Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine.

MAHOMET: ...Haste thou and fill the waning crescent With beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow _170 Of Christian night rolled back upon the West, When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow.

Wake, thou Word Of G.o.d, and from the throne of Destiny _175 Even to the utmost limit of thy way May Triumph

Be thou a curse on them whose creed Divides and multiplies the most high G.o.d.

h.e.l.lAS.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

MAHMUD.

Ha.s.sAN.

DAOOD.

AHASUERUS, A JEW.

CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN.

[THE PHANTOM OF MAHOMET II. (OMITTED, EDITION 1822.)]

MESSENGERS, SLAVES, AND ATTENDANTS.

SCENE: CONSTANTINOPLE.

TIME: SUNSET.

SCENE: A TERRACE ON THE SERAGLIO.

MAHMUD SLEEPING, AN INDIAN SLAVE SITTING BESIDE HIS COUCH.

CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN: We strew these opiate flowers On thy restless pillow,-- They were stripped from Orient bowers, By the Indian billow.

Be thy sleep _5 Calm and deep, Like theirs who fell--not ours who weep!

INDIAN: Away, unlovely dreams!

Away, false shapes of sleep Be his, as Heaven seems, _10 Clear, and bright, and deep!

Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath.

CHORUS: Sleep, sleep! our song is laden With the soul of slumber; _15 It was sung by a Samian maiden, Whose lover was of the number Who now keep That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. _20

INDIAN: I touch thy temples pale!

I breathe my soul on thee!

And could my prayers avail, All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, _25 So thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep.

CHORUS: Breathe low, low The spell of the mighty mistress now!

When Conscience lulls her sated snake, And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake. _30 Breathe low--low The words which, like secret fire, shall flow Through the veins of the frozen earth--low, low!

SEMICHORUS 1: Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; _35 Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed,--but it returneth!

SEMICHORUS 2: Yet were life a charnel where Hope lay coffined with Despair; Yet were truth a sacred lie, _40 Love were l.u.s.t--

SEMICHORUS 1: If Liberty Lent not life its soul of light, Hope its iris of delight, Truth its prophet's robe to wear, Love its power to give and bear. _45

CHORUS: In the great morning of the world, The Spirit of G.o.d with might unfurled The flag of Freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted from Imaus, _50 Before an earthquake's tread.-- So from Time's tempestuous dawn Freedom's splendour burst and shone:-- Thermopylae and Marathon Caught like mountains beacon-lighted, _55 The springing Fire.--The winged glory On Philippi half-alighted, Like an eagle on a promontory.

Its unwearied wings could fan The quenchless ashes of Milan. _60 From age to age, from man to man, It lived; and lit from land to land Florence, Albion, Switzerland.

Then night fell; and, as from night, Rea.s.suming fiery flight, _65 From the West swift Freedom came, Against the course of Heaven and doom.

A second sun arrayed in flame, To burn, to kindle, to illume.

From far Atlantis its young beams _70 Chased the shadows and the dreams.

France, with all her sanguine steams, Hid, but quenched it not; again Through clouds its shafts of glory rain From utmost Germany to Spain. _75 As an eagle fed with morning Scorns the embattled tempest's warning, When she seeks her aerie hanging In the mountain-cedar's hair, And her brood expect the clanging _80 Of her wings through the wild air, Sick with famine:--Freedom, so To what of Greece remaineth now Returns; her h.o.a.ry ruins glow Like Orient mountains lost in day; _85 Beneath the safety of her wings Her renovated nurslings prey, And in the naked lightenings Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes.

Let Freedom leave--where'er she flies, _90 A Desert, or a Paradise: Let the beautiful and the brave Share her glory, or a grave.

NOTES: _77 tempest's]tempests edition 1822.

_87 prey edition 1822; play editions 1839.

SEMICHORUS 1: With the gifts of gladness Greece did thy cradle strew; _95

SEMICHORUS 2: With the tears of sadness Greece did thy shroud bedew!

SEMICHORUS 1: With an orphan's affection She followed thy bier through Time;

SEMICHORUS 2: And at thy resurrection _100 Reappeareth, like thou, sublime!

SEMICHORUS 1: If Heaven should resume thee, To Heaven shall her spirit ascend;

SEMICHORUS 2: If h.e.l.l should entomb thee, To h.e.l.l shall her high hearts bend. _105

SEMICHORUS 1: If Annihilation--

SEMICHORUS 2: Dust let her glories be!