The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  The hearts of those who watched it did unlock,

  And made them melt in tears of penitence.

  They gave him entrance free to bear me thence.

  ‘Since this,’ the old man said, ‘seven years are spent,

  1510

  While slowly truth on thy benighted sense

  Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent

  Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.

  XII

  ‘Yes, from the records of my youthful state,

  And from the lore of bards and sages old,

  1515

  From whatsoe’er my wakened thoughts create

  Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold,

  Have I collected language to unfold

  Truth to my countrymen; from shore to shore

  Doctrines of human power my words have told,

  1520

  They have been heard, and men aspire to more

  Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.

  XIII

  ‘In secret chambers parents read, and weep,

  My writings to their babes, no longer blind;

  And young men gather when their tyrants sleep,

  1525

  And vows of faith each to the other bind;

  And marriageable maidens, who have pined

  With love, till life seemed melting through their look,

  A warmer zeal, a nobler hope now find;

  And every bosom thus is rapt and shook,

  1530

  Like autumn’s myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook.

  XIV

  ‘The tyrants of the Golden City tremble

  At voices which are heard about the streets,

  The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble

  The lies of their own heart; but when one meets

  1535

  Another at the shrine, he inly weets,

  Though he says nothing, that the truth is known;

  Murderers are pale upon the judgement-seats,

  And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,

  And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.

  XV

  1540

  ‘Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds

  Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law

  Of mild equality and peace, succeeds

  To faiths which long have held the world in awe,

  Bloody and false, and cold:—as whirlpools draw

  1545

  All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway

  Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw

  This hope, compels all spirits to obey,

  Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

  XVI

  ‘For I have been thy passive instrument’—

  1550

  (As thus the old man spake, his countenance

  Gleamed on me like a spirit’s)—‘thou hast lent

  To me, to all, the power to advance

  Towards this unforeseen deliverance

  From our ancestral chains—ay, thou didst rear

  1555

  That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance

  Nor change may not extinguish, and my share

  Of good, was o’er the world its gathered beams to bear.

  XVII

  ‘But I, alas! am both unknown and old,

  And though the woof of wisdom I know well

  1560

  To dye in hues of language, I am cold

  In seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell,

  My manners note that I did long repel;

  But Laon’s name to the tumultuous throng

  Were like the star whose beams the waves compel

  1565

  And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue

  Were as a lance to quell the mailèd crest of wrong.

  XVIII

  ‘Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length

  Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare

  Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength

  1570

  Of words—for lately did a maiden fair,

  Who from her childhood has been taught to bear

  The tyrant’s heaviest yoke, arise, and make

  Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear,

  And with these quiet words—“For thine own sake

  1575

  I prithee spare me;”—did with ruth so take

  XIX

  ‘All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound

  Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,

  Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found

  One human hand to harm her—unassailed

  1580

  Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled

  In virtue’s adamantine eloquence,

  ’Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed,

  And blending, in the smiles of that defence,

  The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.

  XX

  1585

  ‘The wild-eyed women throng around her path:

  From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust

  Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor’s wrath,

  Or the caresses of his sated lust

  They congregate:—in her they put their trust;

  1590

  The tyrants send their armèd slaves to quell

  Her power;—they, even like a thunder-gust

  Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell

  Of that young maiden’s speech, and to their chiefs rebel.

  XXI

  ‘Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach

  1595

  To woman, outraged and polluted long;

  Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach

  For those fair hands now free, while armèd wrong

  Trembles before her look, though it be strong;

  Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,

  1600

  And matrons with their babes, a stately throng!

  Lovers renew the vows which they did plight

  In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,

  XXII

  ‘And homeless orphans find a home near her,

  And those poor victims of the proud, no less,

  1605

  Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir,

  Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:—

  In squalid huts, and in its palaces

  Sits Lust alone, while o’er the land is borne

  Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress

  1610

  All evil, and her foes relenting turn,

  And cast the vote of love in hope’s abandoned urn.

  XXIII

  ‘So in the populous City, a young maiden

  Has baffled Havoc of the prey which he

  Marks as his own, whene’er with chains o’erladen

  1615

  Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny,—

  False arbiter between the bound and free;

  And o’er the land, in hamlets and in towns

  The multitudes collect tumultuously,

  And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns

  1620

  Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones.

  XXIV

  ‘Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed,

  The free cannot forbear—the Queen of Slaves,

  The hoodwinked Angel of the blind and dead,

  Custom, with iron mace points to the graves

  1625

  Where her own standard desolately waves

  Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings.

  Many yet stand in her array—“she paves

  Her path with human hearts,” and o’er it flings

  The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.

  XXV

  1630

  ‘Th
ere is a plain beneath the City’s wall,

  Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast,

  Millions there lift at Freedom’s thrilling call

  Ten thousand standards wide, they load the blast

  Which bears one sound of many voices past,

  1635

  And startles on his throne their sceptred foe:

  He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,

  And that his power hath passed away, doth know—

  Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?

  XXVI

  ‘The tyrant’s guards resistance yet maintain:

  1640

  Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood,

  They stand a speck amid the peopled plain;

  Carnage and ruin have been made their food

  From infancy—ill has become their good,

  And for its hateful sake their will has wove

  1645

  The chains which eat their hearts—the multitude

  Surrounding them, with words of human love,

  Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.

  XXVII

  ‘Over the land is felt a sudden pause,

  As night and day those ruthless bands around,

  1650

  The watch of love is kept:—a trance which awes

  The thoughts of men with hope—as, when the sound

  Of whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds confound,

  Dies suddenly, the mariner in fear

  Feels silence sink upon his heart—thus bound,

  1655

  The conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne’er

  Clasp the relentless knees of Dread the murderer!

  XXVIII

  ‘If blood be shed, ’tis but a change and choice

  Of bonds,—from slavery to cowardice

  A wretched fall!—Uplift thy charmèd voice!

  1660

  Pour on those evil men the love that lies

  Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes—

  Arise, my friend, farewell!’—As thus he spake,

  From the green earth lightly I did arise,

  As one out of dim dreams that doth awake,

  1665

  And looked upon the depth of that reposing lake.

  XXIX

  I saw my countenance reflected there;—

  And then my youth fell on me like a wind

  Descending on still waters—my thin hair

  Was prematurely gray, my face was lined

  1670

  With channels, such as suffering leaves behind,

  Not age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek

  And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find

  Their food and dwelling; though mine eyes might speak

  A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.

  XXX

  1675

  And though their lustre now was spent and faded,

  Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien

  The likeness of a shape for which was braided

  The brightest woof of genius, still was seen—

  One who, methought, had gone from the world’s scene,

  1680

  And left it vacant—’twas her lover’s face—

  It might resemble her—it once had been

  The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace

  Which her mind’s shadow cast, left there a lingering trace.

  XXXI

  What then was I? She slumbered with the dead.

  1685

  Glory and joy and peace, had come and gone.

  Doth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled

  Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone,

  Doth it not through the paths of night unknown,

  On outspread wings of its own wind upborne

  1690

  Pour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown,

  When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn

  Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.

  XXXII

  Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man

  I left, with interchange of looks and tears,

  1695

  And lingering speech, and to the Camp began

  My way. O’er many a mountain-chain which rears

  Its hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears

  My frame: o’er many a dale and many a moor,

  And gaily now meseems serene earth wears

  1700

  The blosmy spring’s star-bright investiture.

  A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.

  XXXIII

  My powers revived within me, and I went

  As one whom winds waft o’er the bending grass,

  Through many a vale of that broad continent.

  1705

  At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass

  Before my pillow;—my own Cythna was,

  Not like a child of death, among them ever;

  When I arose from rest, a woful mass

  That gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever,

  1710

  As if the light of youth were not withdrawn for ever.

  XXXIV

  Aye as I went, that maiden who had reared

  The torch of Truth afar, of whose high deeds

  The Hermit in his pilgrimage had heard,

  Haunted my thoughts.—Ah, Hope its sickness feeds

  1715

  With whatso’er it finds, or flowers or weeds!

  Could she be Cythna?—Was that corpse a shade

  Such as self-torturing thought from madness breeds?

  Why was this hope not torture? Yet it made

  A light around my steps which would not ever fade.

  CANTO V

  I

  1720

  OVER the utmost hill at length I sped,

  A snowy steep:—the moon was hanging low

  Over the Asian mountains, and outspread

  The plain, the City, and the Camp below,

  Skirted the midnight Ocean’s glimmering flow;

  1725

  The City’s moonlit spires and myriad lamps,

  Like stars in a sublunar sky did glow,

  And fires blazed far amid the scattered camps,

  Like springs of flame, which burst where’er swift Earthquake stamps.

  II

  All slept but those in watchful arms who stood,

  1730

  And those who sate tending the beacon’s light,

  And the few sounds from that vast multitude

  Made silence more profound.—Oh, what a might

  Of human thought was cradled in that night!

  How many hearts impenetrably veiled

  1735

  Beat underneath its shade, what secret fight

  Evil and good, in woven passions mailed,

  Waged through that silent throng; a war that never failed!

  III

  And now the Power of Good held victory,

  So, through the labyrinth of many a tent,

  1740

  Among the silent millions who did lie

  In innocent sleep, exultingly I went;

  The moon had left Heaven desert now, but lent

  From eastern morn the first faint lustre showed

  An armèd youth—over his spear he bent

  1745

  His downward face.—‘A friend!’ I cried aloud,

  And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.

  IV

  I sate beside him while the morning beam

  Crept slowly over Heaven, and talked with him

  Of those immortal hopes, a glorious theme!

  1750

  Which led us forth, until the stars grew dim:

  And all the while, methought, his voice did swim

  As if it drownèd in remembrance were

  Of thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim:

  At last, when daylig
ht ’gan to fill the air,

  1755

  He looked on me, and cried in wonder—‘Thou art here!’

  V

  Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth

  In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found;

  But envious tongues had stained his spotless truth,

  And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound,

  1760

  And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound,

  Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded;

  The truth now came upon me, on the ground

  Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded,

  Fell fast, and o’er its peace our mingling spirits brooded.

  VI

  1765

  Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes

  We talked, a sound of sweeping conflict spread

  As from the earth did suddenly arise;

  From every tent roused by that clamour dread.

  Our bands outsprung and seized their arms—we sped

  1770

  Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far.

  Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead

  Stabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war

  The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.

  VII

  Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child

  1775

  Who brings them food, when winter false and fair

  Allures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild

  They rage among the camp;—they overbear

  The patriot hosts—confusion, then despair

  Descends like night—when ‘Laon!’ one did cry:

  Like a bright ghost from Heaven that shout did scare

  The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky,

  Seemed sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory.

  VIII