The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 96

Were or had been eyes:--'If thou canst forbear To join the dance, which I had well forborne,'

Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, _190

'I will unfold that which to this deep scorn Led me and my companions, and relate The progress of the pageant since the morn;

'If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate, Follow it thou even to the night, but I _195 Am weary.'--Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearily He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried: 'First, who art thou?'--'Before thy memory,

'I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, _200 And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit Had been with purer nutriment supplied,

'Corruption would not now thus much inherit Of what was once Rousseau,--nor this disguise Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it; _205

'If I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark I bore'-- 'And who are those chained to the car?'--'The wise,

'The great, the unforgotten,--they who wore Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, _210 Signs of thought's empire over thought--their lore

'Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might Could not repress the mystery within, And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

'Caught them ere evening.'--'Who is he with chin _215 Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?'-- 'The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

'The world, and lost all that it did contain Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain _220

'Without the opportunity which bore Him on its eagle pinions to the peak From which a thousand climbers have before

'Fallen, as Napoleon fell.'--I felt my cheek Alter, to see the shadow pa.s.s away, _225 Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay; And much I grieved to think how power and will In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why G.o.d made irreconcilable _230 Good and the means of good; and for despair I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were And scarce have ceased to be.--'Dost thou behold,'

Said my guide, 'those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, _235

'Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And h.o.a.ry anarchs, demagogues, and sage-- names which the world thinks always old,

'For in the battle Life and they did wage, She remained conqueror. I was overcome _240 By my own heart alone, which neither age,

'Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb Could temper to its object.'--'Let them pa.s.s,'

I cried, 'the world and its mysterious doom

'Is not so much more glorious than it was, _245 That I desire to wors.h.i.+p those who drew New figures on its false and fragile gla.s.s

'As the old faded.'--'Figures ever new Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may; We have but thrown, as those before us threw, _250

'Our shadows on it as it pa.s.sed away.

But mark how chained to the triumphal chair The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

'All that is mortal of great Plato there Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; _255 The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

'And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not, Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain, Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

'And near him walk the ... twain, _260 The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

'The world was darkened beneath either pinion Of him whom from the flock of conquerors Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; _265

'The other long outlived both woes and wars, Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept The jealous key of Truth's eternal doors,

'If Bacon's eagle spirit had not lept Like lightning out of darkness--he compelled _270 The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

'To wake, and lead him to the caves that held The treasure of the secrets of its reign.

See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

'The pa.s.sions which they sung, as by their strain _275 May well be known: their living melody Tempers its own contagion to the vein

'Of those who are infected with it--I Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!

And so my words have seeds of misery-- _180

'Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.'

And then he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine; The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares _285

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line, And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad: And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and G.o.d; Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, _290 Was wors.h.i.+pped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched--'Their power was given But to destroy,' replied the leader:--'I Am one of those who have created, even

'If it be but a world of agony.'-- _295 'Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?

How did thy course begin?' I said, 'and why?

'Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought-- Speak!'--'Whence I am, I partly seem to know, _300

'And how and by what paths I have been brought To this dread pa.s.s, methinks even thou mayst guess;-- Why this should be, my mind can compa.s.s not;

'Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;-- But follow thou, and from spectator turn _305 Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

'And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn From thee. Now listen:--In the April prime, When all the forest-tips began to burn

'With kindling green, touched by the azure clime _310 Of the young season, I was laid asleep Under a mountain, which from unknown time

'Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep; And from it came a gentle rivulet, Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep _315

'Bent the soft gra.s.s, and kept for ever wet The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

'All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, Which they had known before that hour of rest; _320 A sleeping mother then would dream not of

'Her only child who died upon the breast At eventide--a king would mourn no more The crown of which his brows were dispossessed