The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  2625

  Of her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight

  My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes,

  Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies

  O’er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,

  Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,

  2630

  Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,

  With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.

  XXXIV

  The Meteor to its far morass returned:

  The beating of our veins one interval

  Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned

  2635

  Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall

  Around my heart like fire; and over all

  A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep

  And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall

  Two disunited spirits when they leap

  2640

  In union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep.

  XXXV

  Was it one moment that confounded thus

  All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one

  Unutterable power, which shielded us

  Even from our own cold looks, when we had gone

  2645

  Into a wide and wild oblivion

  Of tumult and of tenderness? or now

  Had ages, such as make the moon and sun,

  The seasons, and mankind their changes know,

  Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?

  XXXVI

  2650

  I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps

  The failing heart in languishment, or limb

  Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps

  Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim

  Through tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,

  2655

  In one caress? What is the strong control

  Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,

  Where far over the world those vapours roll,

  Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?

  XXXVII

  It is the shadow which doth float unseen,

  2660

  But not unfelt, o’er blind mortality,

  Whose divine darkness fled not, from that green

  And lone recess, where lapped in peace did lie

  Our linkèd frames till, from the changing sky,

  That night and still another day had fled;

  2665

  And then I saw and felt. The moon was high,

  And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spread

  Under its orb,—loud winds were gathering overhead.

  XXXVIII

  Cythna’s sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,

  Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,

  2670

  And her dark tresses were all loosely strewn

  O’er her pale bosom:—all within was still,

  And the sweet peace of joy did almost fill

  The depth of her unfathomable look;—

  And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,

  2675

  The waves contending in its caverns strook,

  For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.

  XXXIX

  There we unheeding sate, in the communion

  Of interchangèd vows, which, with a rite

  Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—

  2680

  Few were the living hearts which could unite

  Like ours, or celebrate a bridal-night

  With such close sympathies, for they had sprung

  From linked youth, and from the gentle might

  Of earliest love, delayed and cherished long,

  Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong.

  XL

  2685

  And such is Nature’s law divine, that those

  Who grow together cannot choose but love,

  If faith or custom do not interpose,

  Or common slavery mar what else might move

  2690

  All gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove

  Which shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,

  That living tree, which, if the arrowy dove

  Strike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,

  But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;

  XLI

  2695

  And clings to them, when darkness may dissever

  The close caresses of all duller plants

  Which bloom on the wide earth—thus we for ever

  Were linked, for love had nursed us in the haunts

  Where knowledge, from its secret source enchants

  2700

  Young hearts with the fresh music of its springing,

  Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,

  As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flinging

  Light on the woven boughs which o’er its waves are swinging.

  XLII

  The tones of Cythna’s voice like echoes were

  Of those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell,

  Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,—

  And so we sate, until our talk befell

  Of the late ruin, swift and horrible,

  And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,

  2710

  Whose fruit is evil’s mortal poison: well,

  For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,

  But Cythna’s eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone

  XLIII

  Since she had food:—therefore I did awaken

  The Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane

  2715

  Soon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken,

  Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,

  Following me obediently; with pain

  Of heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,

  When lips and heart refuse to part again

  2720

  Till they have told their fill, could scarce express

  The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,

  XLIV

  Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode

  That willing steed—the tempest and the night,

  Which gave my path its safety as I rode

  2725

  Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite

  The darkness and the tumult of their might

  Borne on all winds.—Far through the streaming rain

  Floating at intervals the garments white

  Of Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again

  2730

  Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain.

  XLV

  I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he

  Who bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red

  Turned on the lightning’s cleft exultingly;

  And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,

  2735

  Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread

  His nostrils to the blast, and joyously

  Mock the fierce peal with neighings;—thus we sped

  O’er the lit plain, and soon I could descry

  Where Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.

  XLVI

  2740

  There was a desolate village in a wood

  Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed

  The hungry storm; it was a place of blood,

  A heap of hearthless walls;—the flames were dead

  Within those dwellings now,—the life had fled

  2745

  From all those corpses now,—but the wide sky

  Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead

  By the black rafters, and around did lie

  Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

  XLVII

  Beside the fountain in the market-place

&n
bsp; 2750

  Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare

  With horny eyes upon each other’s face,

  Ana on the earth and on the vacant air,

  And upon me, close to the waters where

  I stooped to slake my thirst;—I shrank to taste,

  2755

  For the salt bitterness of blood was there;

  But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste

  If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

  XLVIII

  No living thing was there beside one woman,

  Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she

  2760

  Was withered from a likeness of aught human

  Into a fiend, by some strange misery:

  Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,

  And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed

  With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,

  2765

  And cried, ‘Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed

  The Plague’s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!

  XLIX

  ‘My name is Pestilence—this bosom dry,

  Once fed two babes—a sister and a brother—

  When I came home, one in the blood did lie

  Of three death-wounds—the flames had ate the other!

  Since then I have no longer been a mother,

  But I am Pestilence;—hither and thither

  I flit about, that I may slay and smother:—

  All lips which I have kissed must surely wither,

  2775

  But Death’s—if thou art he, we’ll go to work together!

  L

  ‘What seek’st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,—

  The dew is rising dankly from the dell—

  ’Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes

  In my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell

  First what thou seek’st.’—‘I seek for food.’—‘’Tis well,

  Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour,

  Waits for us at the feast—cruel and fell

  Is Famine, but he drives not from his door

  Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!’

  LI

  2785

  As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength

  Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth

  She led, and over many a corpse:—at length

  We came to a lone hut where on the earth

  Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth

  2790

  Gathering from all those homes now desolate,

  Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth

  Among the dead—round which she set in state

  A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

  LII

  She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high

  2795

  Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: ‘Eat!

  Share the great feast—to-morrow we must die!’

  And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,

  Towards her bloodless guests;—that sight to meet,

  Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she

  2800

  Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat

  Despair, I might have raved in sympathy;

  But now I took the food that woman offered me;

  LIII

  And vainly having with her madness striven

  If I might win her to return with me,

  2805

  Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven

  The lightning now grew pallid—rapidly,

  As by the shore of the tempestuous sea

  The dark steed bore me, and the mountain gray

  Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see

  2810

  Cythna among the rocks, where she alway

  Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

  LIV

  And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,

  Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast

  My arms around her, lest her steps should fail

  2815

  As to our home we went, and thus embraced,

  Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste

  Than e’er the prosperous know; the steed behind

  Trod peacefully along the mountain waste:

  We reached our home ere morning could unbind

  2820

  Night’s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.

  LV

  Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,

  And sweetest kisses past, we two did share

  Our peaceful meal:—as an autumnal blossom

  Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,

  2825

  After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,

  Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit

  Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere

  Of health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,

  And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.

  CANTO VII

  I

  2830

  So we sate joyous as the morning ray

  Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm

  Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play

  Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,

  And we sate linked in the inwoven charm

  2835

  Of converse and caresses sweet and deep,

  Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm

  Time, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,

  And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

  II

  I told her of my sufferings and my madness,

  2840

  And how, awakened from that dreamy mood

  By Liberty’s uprise, the strength of gladness

  Came to my spirit in my solitude;

  And all that now I was—while tears pursued

  Each other down her fair and glistening cheek

  2845

  Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood

  From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,

  Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

  III

  She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,

  Like broken memories of many a heart

  2850

  Woven into one; to which no firm assurance,

  So wild were they, could her own faith impart.

  She said that not a tear did dare to start

  From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm

  When from all mortal hope she did depart,

  2855

  Borne by those slaves across the Ocean’s term,

  And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.

  IV

  One was she among many there, the thralls

  Of the cold Tyrant’s cruel lust: and they

  Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;

  2860

  But she was calm and sad, musing alway

  On loftiest enterprise, till on a day

  The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute

  A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,

  Like winds that die in wastes—one moment mute

  2865

  The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.

  V

  Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,

  One moment to great Nature’s sacred power

  He bent, and was no longer passionless;

  But when he bade her to his secret bower

  2870

  Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore

  Her locks in agony, and her words of flame

  And mightier looks availed not; then he bore

  Again his load of slavery, and became

  A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.
br />   VI

  2875

  She told me what a loathsome agony

  Is that when selfishness mocks love’s delight,

  Foul as in dream’s most fearful imagery

  To dally with the mowing dead—that night

  All torture, fear, or horror made seem light

  2880

  Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day

  Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight

  Where like a Spirit in fleshly chains she lay

  Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.

  VII

  Her madness was a beam of light, a power

  2885

  Which dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave,

  Gestures, and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore

  Which might not be withstood—whence none could save—

  All who approached their sphere,—like some calm wave

  Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;

  2890

  And sympathy made each attendant slave

  Fearless and free, and they began to breathe

  Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath,

  VIII

  The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:

  At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,—

  2895

  One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown

  From human shape into an instrument

  Of all things ill—distorted, bowed and bent.

  The other was a wretch from infancy

  Made dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant

  2900

  But to obey: from the fire-isles came he,

  A diver lean and strong, of Oman’s coral sea.

  IX

  They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke

  Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,

  Until upon their path the morning broke;